Who Do These Abandoned 747s Belong To?
Erica Berardi December 08, 2015
Malaysia Airports is looking for the owners of three abandoned planes.
Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad is searching for the owners of three cargo aircraft abandoned at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).
Malaysia Airports, which owns and operates KLIA, took out and advertisement in Malaysia’s The Star and Sin Chew Daily newspapers Monday. The ads identified two white and one off-white Boeing 747-200Fs in photos.
“If you fail to collect the aircraft within 14 days of the date of this notice, we reserve the right to sell or otherwise dispose of the aircraft,” the ad said.
Today, Malaysian Airports issued a clarification to the ads, which the company said serves as notice to the plane owners that they aircraft may be sold to recover charges owed to the company.
“The giving of such notice by way of advertisement is a common and reasonable step in the process of debt recovery especially in cases where the company concerned has ceased operations and is a foreign entity whereby exhaustive steps undertaken to find a contact person have not been successful,” Malaysian Airports said in the statement issued on its website Tuesday. “This step is also a common process undertaken by airport operators all over the world when faced with such a situation.”
FlyerTalk emails to Malaysian Airports were not immediately returned, and it remains unclear why the planes’ owners are not readily identifiable.
Malaysia Airports is an incorporated, publically-listed company in the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad and operates 5 international gateways, 16 Malaysian airports, with KLIA serving as the company’s main hub.
[Photo: Malaysia Air]
It is not as easy to determine ownership as some of the previous comments have implied. I am sure these aircraft were leased or mortgaged and the title held by an anonymous tax haven holding company. The title may have been passed around several times while the aircraft themselves have little more than scrap value. The owner may be in bankruptcy with multiple claimants to the aircraft or there may be several liens against it. Finding the owner would be an expensive and involved search, so the easiest thing to do it make a public announcement for the owners to step forward and claim the aircraft or they will be sold to pay the parking fees.
Even with all this mess, I still can't find enough award seats on Malaysia air
Malaysia has serious problems with corrupt incompetent government. They just passed a law giving full powers to the prime minister. Pretty much a dictatorship now.
The company who flew the plane there is probably not the same company who owns the aircraft. If several intervening companies in the ownership chain have been dissolved in foreign jurisdictions it could be quite hard to find the beneficial owner of the aircraft.
They can't find one but now found three.....WTF!!!!!