After climbing up the boarding stairs, you may ask for a window seat on the Airbus A-319 and settle down for the drinks and food to arrive.

But remember not to make any airline food jokes. For this will be no cold and packed meal served by air-hostesses but freshly cooked fare, laid out on your table by professional waiters. And chances are, you will be ready to shell out a nifty sum for it, and tip the server as well.

Old aircraft discarded by airlines after years of flying are no longer being sold as scrap but “repurposed” and turned into restaurants. Or video game parlours. Even snazzy offices.

The engines are repaired and recertified for use as spares.

Several retired aircraft that lay at Calcutta airport were recently sold to private companies that are converting the fuselage into restaurants while selling other components, such as the landing gear or wheels, to aviation training institutes for use in demonstration classes.

Large aircraft hulls being carried on trailers along Jessore Road and the Belgharia Expressway, stalling traffic and drawing interested onlookers, has become a familiar sight over the past few months.

Calcutta-based e-commerce company mjunction has facilitated the sale of five such aircraft, parked at Calcutta airport, in a year. All of them were sold by Air India, an mjunction official said. The buyers of the last two will turn them into restaurants.

“The trend of reusing and repurposing aircraft has caught on over the last few years. The organisation selling the aircraft wanted us to get a good scrap price for them, but we got them buyers who will repurpose them,” said Vinaya Varma, MD and CEO, mjunction, a joint venture between Tata Steel and Steel Authority of India Ltd.

“They will use the aircraft as fancy office space or restaurants. We have a large buyer base of refurbishers and recyclers that our marketing team can identify and get onboard.”

Varma said mjunction had been “in the recycle business for a long time now”.

“We don’t recycle ourselves but connect those who have unused plants, machinery, excess material and, of course, aircraft that have exhausted their life spans to the recyclers,” Varma added.

An mjunction official said the last two aircraft sold in Calcutta together fetched about ₹5.5 crore.

An Air India official said the airline was selling off some of the old aircraft from its fleet of Airbus A-319s, which have 122 passenger seats each. “These aircraft are usually more than 20 years old,” the official said.

A company that buys old aircraft and sells it to other companies for reuse said the business had been thriving for a long time outside India.

“Post-Covid, the business of repurposing aircraft increased in India,” said an official who did not want to be quoted.

Patna-based Boss Solutions has bought an Airbus A-319 and plans to use it as a restaurant in Purulia.

“We dismantled the wings and took the aircraft to a site where the wings were fixed again and additional steel put on the hull,” Abhishek Sinha, proprietor of Boss Solutions, said.

“We will be using it as a restaurant at a resort in Purulia. Currently, the hull is being redesigned. Fire licences are not given for setting up kitchens inside aircraft shells, so the kitchen will be outside.”

The aircraft seats will be replaced with ones more suited to restaurants. “We may try to use the (aircraft) seats for other purposes,” Sinha said.

The waiters will use the rear door of the aircraft while the diners will enter through the front door, climbing up an aeroplane stairway. The cockpit and its panel will be used as a video game station for children.

“I had in the past bought old aircraft from the Pune, Patna and Guwahati airports and sold them to others. This one, I will run as a restaurant with a partner,” Sinha said.

Another discarded and sold aircraft that recently left Calcutta airport has now reached Andhra Pradesh by road and is expected to reach its destination, Chennai, in 10 days. A maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) company has bought it for ₹2.3 crore.

“We bought the aircraft in February and, after some of the components were dismantled, it was ready for transport in May. Finally, it was put on the road in July,” said S. Pandian, CMD, Nano Aviation India Pvt Ltd (MRO), a Chennai-based company.

“Old aircraft are now being used mostly as restaurants but also as office space, and for film shoots and aviation training.”

Pandian’s company will convert the fuselage into a restaurant. He said that some of the dismantled components would be sent for recertification by approved facilities for use in the aviation sector.