



Seven million five hundred thousand, eight, nine, nine million nine hundred and fifty thousand ... and sold. The body of a Boeing 747-300 aircraft was auctioned for Rs9.95 million on Wednesday at the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) head office, bringing to end the journey of one of few jumbos in the country.





The aircraft with the registration number AP-BFW was inducted into the PIA fleet on June 14, 1999, and has been sold sans engine, instrumental panel, avionics, landing gear and seats.The auction was attended by 13 scrap dealers but the competition remained between two parties, who vied for the jumbo aircraft’s body in a close bidding contest.Overseen by PIA’s General Manager Procurement and Logistics S Mujibur Rehman, a reserve price of Rs7.5 million was fixed by the airline.Soon after auctioneer started the bidding, the price quickly rose to Rs9.3 million. But from there on it was slow build-up as the two main contestants kept on adding just Rs50,000 in tit-for-tat bids.“Take it to a carore (Rs10 million), take it to a carore,” the auctioneer insisted but bidders stopped Rs50,000 short of the respectable eight digit figure.The successful bidder has a little over a month to take away the body, which includes the fuselage, wings and tail, from the airport hangar. The body will be cut and transported piece by piece, on trucks to the scrap dealer’s workshop.It was a humbling sight for PIA officials to see dealers in shalwar kameez and slippers bidding for something that cost millions of dollars, has transported hundreds of thousands of passengers, generated billions in revenue, and put PIA in an exclusive club.However, nothing goes to waste when it comes to an aircraft. The cannibalisation, as officials call the process of stripping down all the components including the water tanks, helps PIA in saving cost.In the upcoming Hajj operation, PIA will use two other B-747s, which have been fitted with more seats to carry maximum passengers. Since Boeing has stopped making seats for this particular make of the aircraft, they had to be salvaged from the auctioned plane.“The normal seating capacity in a 747 is 420, but the Hajj flights will take around 465 passengers,” said the official. “Suppliers would have ripped us off badly if we had bought the seats from open market.”Similarly the landing gear, engines and electronic components will be used whenever needed, helping the airline to save money.“Now the interesting part starts. It’s not as massive an operation like ship breaking but cutting a plane’s body needs attention and expertise,” said a PIA official who was also part of the auction.The plane was produced by Boeing in the early 90s and remained in service with Cathay Pacific before PIA bought the.The auctioned body weighs 72,500 kilogrammes, taking the price per kilogramme of the body to R131.72. “The body is made up of a mix of metals that includes aluminium, steel and some oxides. It is strong material,” the PIA official said.The name of the successful bidder has been deliberately held back because of extortion and ransom threats faced by traders in Karachi.“Parts of the fuselage will be melted and converted into metallic sheets which are used to make fans mainly for industrial purposes like turbines,” said the official who was briefed by scrap dealers.For thousands of aviation enthusiasts, employees and passengers, the jumbos hold significant value - an attachment other machines seldom witness.There are hundreds of pictures of the AP-BFW available on internet with a lively theme based off ‘Lahore: Garden of the Mughals’, which was introduced by former PIA Managing Director Tariq Kirmani as part of a rebranding campaign.President Pakistan Airline Pilots’ Association (Palpa) Sohail Baluch says aviators tend to fall in love with planes around the world and remember it long after it has been decommissioned.“It’s like being stuck in a cubicle for 11-12 hours. You begin to understand the plane and you know the engines and other systems. It’s an automatic attachment,” said the official.Published in The Express Tribune, August 29, 2013.Correction: An earlier version of this article carried an incorrect picture. The correction has been made.