Who Abandoned These Three Boeing 747s?
Malaysian authorities are looking for the jumbo jets’ rightful owners.
The lost and found at Kuala Lumpur International Airport is a particularly intriguing place. Mostly because it contains three giant Boeing 747 cargo jets. This week, KLIA authorities posted a newspaper advertisement looking for the rightful owners of the derelict jets, which cost $360 million apiece off the assembling line, and have been sitting in three separate parking bays for over a year.
According to Bloomberg News, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd. placed an advertisement Monday in the nation’s best-selling English daily asking for the “untraceable” owners to come and collect them.
The advertisement went on to warn the mysterious parties that they have just 14 days to raise their hands before the planes are placed on the auction block.
“We have been in communication with the so-called owner, but they have not been responding to take away the aircraft,” Zainol Mohd, who placed the ad, told Bloomberg. “That’s why we go through this process to legalize whatever actions we want to take. We want to clear the area, we want to utilize our parking bay.”
Boeing built its first 747 more than 40 years ago, and, despite a sales slump in the increasingly competitive jumbo jet market, recently announced that it was sticking to its production plans. At least 143 older freighters will need to be replaced, Boeing says and sees demand for 540 very large aircraft over the next 20 years. Competitor, Airbus sees a market for 1,551 such planes.
