When you exit Arlanda Airport on the highway toward Stockholm, you’ll see a Boeing 747 on your left that looks curiously out of place.
The plane sits idle and lonely on a grass-covered mound just outside the airport perimeter, without any recognizable airline colors.
You might think the giant aircraft got lost on the way to the runway and was abandoned, were it not for the inscription on the side: “Jumbo Hostel.”
PHOTO: AP
Turns out this former Pan Am jumbo jet is no longer taking passengers to the skies, but will soon be accommodating them on the ground. Left inactive at Arlanda, Stockholm’s main airport, after its last owner went bankrupt, the plane was rescued by a Swedish entrepreneur looking to expand his hostel business.
“I got information about this airplane standing abandoned at Arlanda,” said Oscar Dios, who runs a hostel in Uppsala, about 32km north of Arlanda. “I thought, why not try to convert it into a hostel? Since you’ve been converting boats and light houses and trains before into hostels.”
Construction crews are working through the holidays to get the 25 rooms ready for the scheduled opening on Jan. 15. Jumbo Hostel is already taking bookings.
The 6m² rooms are spartan, with a bunk bed, an overhead luggage compartment and a flat screen TV with entertainment as well as flight information.
Every centimeter of the 353m² floor space is being used. There will be a reception and small cafeteria just inside the front entrance, two rows of rooms on each side of the aisle, and showers and toilets in the rear. The bubble on top is being remodeled into a conference room with first-class flight seats.
Dios is hoping for a diverse clientele, including airport taxi drivers stopping for a coffee break in the cafeteria, business travelers needing accommodation close to Arlanda and even wedding parties looking for an unusual ceremony.
As soon as the guard rails come up, couples will be able to exchange vows on the left wing, receive a small party in the conference room and spend the night in the cockpit, converted into a bridal suite with a private bathroom.
Rates range from 300 kronor (US$40) for a bed in a shared four-bed dormitory to 1,350 kronor for a private room with a twin bed and a single bed. The bridal suite costs 3,300 kronor per night.
Hostel staff will wear cabin crew uniforms — what else — and the furniture in the cafeteria will evoke the glory days of air travel.
“We’re going for the Pan Am era. A lot of 70s,” says project leader Gisela Olsson.
Built in 1976, the plane — now named Liv after Dios’ daughter — first took to the skies with Singapore Airlines before shifting to Pan Am for about 10 years.
After that airline went belly up in the 1990s, it flew under a variety of colors until being bought by Swedish leasing company Transjet. When that, too, went bankrupt, the aircraft was left decaying at Arlanda Airport until Dios came along with a bundle of cash.
It remains to be seen whether his idea will take off among Arlanda air travelers.
Dios is confident Jumbo Hostel will be profitable and even spread to airports around the world.
“It’s no kamikaze project,” he said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese