What happens after an aircraft has been retired from service

Some aircraft are just abandoned at airports around the country and become an eyesore for travellers.

Like all machines, aircraft too become old and have to be retired from service. So what happens to the big birds after they have finished serving their employers?

Cars that are too old to run are taken to scrapyards. Similarly, aircraft are sent to sites called boneyards or graveyards. Here, they are either kept for storage with some maintenance or have their parts removed for reuse or resale and are then scrapped. While some boneyards specialise in commercial aircraft, others are into defence aircraft. In either case, used airplanes are parked, stored, cannibalized, recycled, and/or sold for reuse from such boneyards. A few aircraft are bought by or given away to museums or other institutions for display.

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In the USA, boneyard facilities are generally located in deserts, since the dry conditions reduce corrosion and the hard ground does not need to be paved. There is enough place to store the aircraft and the conditions help in keeping the various components in decent shape.

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While some other countries like the USA, retire large fleets of aircraft, India doesn't. As a result, there is no real need for dedicated boneyard facilities in the country.

When an aircraft from the Indian Air Force is retired, the organisation removes all the avionics and equipment from it and then donates it to an educational institution or for exhibition after following the set rules and regulations. Other fighter jets are melted to re-use the steel for their own purposes or of other organisations

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Coming to civil aviation, many of the aircraft flown by Indian carriers are on lease. They are taken back by the lessors (mostly located in other countries) once the lease period is over.

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Some aircraft are just abandoned at airports around the country and become an eyesore for travellers. Most of these aircraft are cannibalised for parts. The authorities invite tenders from scrap dealers to dispose of these aircraft. After they are sold, the scrap dealers wheel them to a remote part of the airport and break them into pieces so that they can be transported out of the airport premises on a trailer. In 2019, a cannibalised Boing 737 that was lying at Kolkata airport for five years was sold to a scrap dealer for Rs. 17 - 18 lakh.

Recently, Nano Aviation, a Chennai-based aircraft maintenance company, dismantled an aircraft at Chennai airport. This was a first-of-its-kind activity in India. A recent amendment in RBI’s FEMA now allows the export of aircraft in partially and fully knocked down condition. This means abandoned and cannibalised aircraft can be exported in parts making it easier for lessors to retrieve their aircraft and components. This process of decommissioning and dismantling is also known as stripping. Earlier, the absence of this regulation prohibited lessors from retrieving their aircraft and components.

India has had the necessary skill and equipment to handle such complex projects. However, the prevailing policy framework did not permit the free export of dismantled components. While the export and import of leased aircraft from and to India was a duty-free transaction, the export of dismantled components from a leased aircraft was not. The amendment to the rules entitles the lessors to export an aircraft in both, complete or partially knocked down condition. Upon retrieval of all components, the frame shell is either scrapped or sold.

Nano Aviation was established in Aug 2013 with an objective to make aviation affordable to all by contributing low-cost sustainable maintenance to the operators and so to pass on the benefit to customers. The company has an all-India airport clearance from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security and approval from Directorate General of Civil Aviation for "CAR 145 Maintenance Organization (MRO)". It has approval for full scope maintenance of Cessna 152/172 R/S aircraft and line maintenance for ATR-72-212 and Boeing 737 NG. The aircraft the company dismantled, was a Jet Airways Boing 777 that was cannibalised and could not be flown out of the country to its lessers.

The amendment in the rules could also help India to become a hub for decommissioning & aircraft dismantling. With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, many airlines could retire a good number of aircraft. The global market for commercial aircraft disassembly, dismantling and recycling is estimated at US$ 6.2 billion in the year 2020 and projected to reach a revised size of US$ 8 billion by 2027. That presents a big business opportunity for India. Revenue will also be generated from storage and parking.

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