Two “retired” planes, mounted on trailer trucks that were parked in the truck bay of Belgharia Expressway near Nivedita Setu, drew a large crowd of curious people on Sunday evening.
Motorists driving down the expressway were awestruck at the sight of the aircraft. Many slowed down and some stopped to take photographs and selfies with the aircraft in the background.
The planes, of the Airbus A319-100 series, used to be part of Air India’s fleet and had been kept in a hangar on the Kolkata airport premises for more than five years, an officer of the airport division of the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate said.
The planes are headed for Punjab where they will be converted into aircraft-themed restaurants, the officer said.
“A couple of businessmen, who run several restaurants along national highways in Punjab, have bought the aircraft. They plan to turn them into restaurants,” he said.
An Air India official said these two aircraft are among several that have been decommissioned.
“As part of our fleet modernisation programme, in addition to inducting new aircraft and retrofitting legacy planes, we are also retiring a part of the old fleet, which includes Airbus A319s. Of the nine Airbus A319 planes stationed in Kolkata, five have already been retired. The remaining will be retired in due course,” said the Air India official.
“In Rajasthan, Punjab and some other places across the country, scrapped planes are converted into restaraunts.”
The place where the trailer trucks carrying the aircraft were parked resembled a fairground. Many stopped their vehicles at the sight of the planes and there was a flurry to click photographs, groupies and selfies with the 111-feet-long aircraft, with “Air India” written on them, in the backdrop.
The police had a tough time keeping traffic moving through both flanks of the expressway.
A Kolkatan who was headed home to Salt Lake through Belgharia Expressway said traffic slowed as many motorists wanted to take pictures of the aircraft.
“I, too, clicked a few photographs on my cellphone. The entire area was buzzing with people trying to capture the best frame possible of the aircraft,” Kolkatan said.
According to an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate, since the aircraft bodies were mounted on very long trailer trucks, the drivers had planned to start late at night, when the traffic would thin on the expressway.
This is not the first time that such “retired” aircraft have caught the fancy of Kolkatans.
A similar aircraft caused excitement among motorists and also became a point of concern for the police as it blocked the alternative route for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s convoy in March.
That aircraft, too, was mounted on a trailer truck. The vehicle crashed into multiple lamp posts and traffic signal posts near the BT College intersection of Jessore Road while trying to reach the Belgharia Expressway on March 2.
The trailer had finally moved out of the city on March 5, the police said.