Ever slept on a plane? Some people swear by it, but others find it hard to do and would rather just sleep at their hotel. But since 2009 at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport, that hotel could actually be a plane, specifically a decommissioned Boeing 747-200. However, the Jumbo Stay Hotel has fallen on hard times, and they just got even harder. After filing for bankruptcy in March, the plane-hotel never found a new buyer, dumping the rusting aircraft into the care of Sweden's airport authority, who don't seem to want it at all.
This is all a bit of a mess, if you couldn't tell. One reason a buyer never appeared might be because Swedavia, the government-owned company that manages Sweden's airports, refused to lease the land to another operator. In other words, a new owner would have had to move the long out-of-service plane somehow. I have never towed a 747 before, but I imagine it's not easy. Or cheap.
That sounds to me like Swedavia wanted to get the plane off its property (it's on airport land), but if it was hoping that the bankruptcy administrator would deal with it, it's all gone wrong. There was apparently no money set aside in the bankruptcy filing for plane removal, per the Sweden Herald, which in fairness is a pretty unusual need. So it's now Swedavia's job to figure out what to do with a rickety old jumbo jet that's also a rickety old hotel.
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The Coolest Hotel In The World (That Also Sucks)
The Jumbo Stay Hotel was once a working Boeing 747, which started flying all the way back in 1976. Its first operator was Singapore Airlines, then later went to PanAm, then Garuda Indonesia, then Cathay Pacific, before finally ending up at TransJet. Fair to say that it's been a few places.
TransJet went bankrupt in 2002, which is when hotel owner Oscar Dios picked it up. After all, he'd already turned boats, lighthouses, and trains into overnight stays, so why not one with wings? The Jumbo Stay Hotel opened in 2009, maybe the second-coolest use of the a 747 ever. If you wanted a room, there were many to choose from! You could sleep in one of the four engine nacelles, which is really neat, except it had no bathroom. Or you could choose one of the wheel wells, which is also really neat, except it also had no bathroom.
The fuselage of the aircraft was where most of the beds were, though these were in hostel-style bunks in a big group area. The bathrooms were communal; my understanding is that these were the actual 747 bathrooms. Up in first class, as befits its status, were some actual private rooms with private bathrooms, which also look like they were just the plane's bathrooms. Finally, there was the coveted cockpit suite, where you could finally fulfill your dream of sleeping under endless switches and instrument panels.
Meanwhile, there was no staff, breakfast was as basic as it gets, it was rusting, the elevator didn't work, and everything was just cramped because, well, it's an airplane. Frankly, if it weren't a 747, it would've been a really bad hotel. Maybe that's why revenue slashed in half between 2019 and 2023, though some new (likely better) hotels in the area may have been a contributing factor. Also worth noting there was a global pandemic in that timeframe as well.
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