AIRBUS A320 HAS FOUND A NEW LIFE AS A RESTAURANT

A retired passenger plane has found a new life as a restaurant in the northern Indian city of Ludhiana in Punjab. Hawai Adda is 72-seater restaurant. It is made out of a junk Airbus A320that once flew for Air India.

It took more than a year to transform the plane into a restaurant. The name means ‘airport’ in Hindi. Hands Hospitality were behind the project. They wanted to retain most of the original elements of the aircraft. As a result, they had to hire experienced engineers and airline support staff to work on the renovation. Posts on its Instagram page reveal a beautiful exterior and a glamorous interior.

“We were inspired by the Maharaja Express (a luxurious food and travel experience inside a train in New Delhi) and wanted to create something similar inside a plane,” Parampreet Singh Luthra, director of Hands Hospitality and the brain behind the innovative project.

But it wasn’t easy. “We wanted to retain most of the original bits of the aircraft including its 1 million wires. So, we had to hire experienced engineers and airline support staff who knew the drill,” he adds.

The project had reportedly run into trouble in late 2015 for fire safety norms, according to the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation. Another report claimed that the airplane’s wings were touching the edges of the Ludhiana- Ferozepur national highway. It was causing a potential traffic hazard and thus, delaying proceedings.

But Luthra denies any such problems. “We have all the clearances from the government,” he confirms.

It’s not the first time a restaurant has been fashioned out of an old aircraft. China unveiled a new restaurant inside an old Boeing 737 in September. It was called Lily Airways.

The restaurant can be found in the middle of the busy shopping district of Wuhan, Hubei provence. Businessman Li Yang bought the retired aircraft from Indonesia’s Batavia Air. It cost ¥35 million ($7.2 million) and shipped it to China over four months.

Despite its fine-dining tag, dinner at the restaurant is reasonably priced at ¥200-300 ($40-$60). Aviation enthusiasts can pay an extra ¥100 to enter the cockpit and experience a flight simulator.