MUMBAI: The first of three Jet Airways Boeing 777-300ERs that had been sitting idle at Mumbai airport since 2019 departed on Monday, more than seven years after the airline grounded its fleet.The tail fins of the grounded Jet Airways aircraft have long been a familiar, faintly melancholic sight, visible to passengers landing and taking off at Mumbai airport, as well as from outside the airport’s boundary wall in Kalina, where the jets remained parked in full view of a city that once flew them.The aircraft, now re-registered as 2-TJEM on Guernsey’s aircraft register after previously flying as VT-JEM under Jet Airways, is headed to Tel Aviv for conversion into a freighter. It was expected to take off at around 6.40 pm, according to a source.The Boeing 777 is among three wide-body aircraft being sold to Malta-based Ace Aviation, a subsidiary of Israel’s Challenge Group, which operates cargo airlines, for a combined $46 million (Rs 418 crore), as part of Jet Airways’ ongoing liquidation process, according to a Bombay Stock Exchange filing.The National Company Law Tribunal has cleared the sale of aircraft registered as VT-JES ($16 million), VT-JEV ($12.5 million) and VT-JEM ($17.5 million).The transaction was delayed for more than three years due to legal disputes over unpaid airport charges. Ace Aviation first bid for the aircraft in 2022 and paid a $5.6 million deposit under a signed letter of intent, but the deal stalled amid objections from Mumbai International Airport Ltd, owned by the Adani Group, which claims parking fees and other dues dating back to 2018 that have since risen to around Rs 1,000 crore.“The aircraft, along with others, was at one point attached by the Collector, Mumbai Suburban, over gratuity dues claimed by the All India Jet Airways Staff and Officers Association,” said a former top Jet Airways official.
