An iconic 'airplane hotel' is left abandoned after bankruptcy

Known especially to aviation junkies, the Jumbo Stay hotel and hostel was opened in 2009 inside a decommissioned Boeing 747-200 (BA) at the Stockholm Arlanda Airport (ARN).

Visitors could book bunks in rooms broken up throughout what used to be the main cabin, while the best suite in the house led into the former cockpit and had the same window from which pilots once looked out into the skies.

The plane was initially built for Singapore Airlines (SINGF) but was last used by Swedish charter airline Transjet before it was taken out of service.

While Jumbo Stay regularly landed on lists of the coolest hotels in the world, its maintenance costs ultimately got too high, and owner Oscar Diös filed for bankruptcy in March 2025. As Diös declared not just his business but also himself bankrupt, the hotel shut down all operations on March 17 and canceled over 800 advance bookings.

Don't miss the move: SIGN UP for TheStreet's FREE Daily newsletter

‘Quite sad that a hotel as special as this is coming to an end': bankruptcy trustee

“It's sad that a hotel that may be the only one of its kind in the world is disappearing,” bankruptcy trustee Daniel Svensson told Swedish outlets at the time. “It is quite sad that a hotel as special as this, which has gained global recognition, is now coming to an end.”

While four months of court proceedings sought to establish what assets could be liquidated and what would be the outcome of the bankruptcy, local news outlets are now reporting that lack of funds that could be seized from the owner means that state-owned airport Swedavia will have to take on the costs of deconstructing and removing the 160-tonne reconverted aircraft.

“With no buyer or operator willing to take over, and Swedavia refusing to renew the lease, the trustee officially abandoned the aircraft,” Aviation24 reports.

Jumbo Stay Hotel launched in 2009 out of a decommissioned Boeing 747-200.

Image source: Jumbo Stay Hotel

An aviation passion project ultimately leads to bankruptcy, hotel shutdown

In response to questions about the status of the hotel, a Swedavia representative said that the operator is “working on the issue based on the new conditions.” Immediately after the bankruptcy announcement, Swedavia said that it would not lease the land on which the Boeing 747-200 sat to another operator.

During the 16 years that it was in operation, Jumbo Stay had 33 rooms and 76 beds. Visitors, who were mostly aviation fans specifically seeking it out for the chance to spend a night in a former plane, could choose between a single-gender dorm room, a standard room, and a suite.

More on travel:

Diös opened the hotel as a passion project after learning that a Boeing 747 was slated to be decommissioned at Arlanda Airport in 2007 and received a license to open a hotel from Swedish regulators.

Removing the basic structure and 450 seats cost Diös an immediate $3 million, but it was the upkeep relative to bookings that ultimately led to the hotel's failure. Some profit was also coming in from advertising space around the hotel to different companies, although the rights to that were also removed by Swedavia in 2020.

Filings show that the hotel's earnings dropped from eight million Swedish Kroner (approximately $800,000 USD) in 2019 to just four million by 2023.