Boeing 747s to be auctioned on Chinese e-commerce platform

Three Boeing 747-400 Freighters will be publicly auctioned on Taobao, the shopping platform of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba.

It is the first time Boeing cargo aircraft have been the subject of a Taobao judicial auction. The auction will open on November 20, with a starting price ranging from 123 million to 135 million yuan (US$20 million) each.

The freight planes were owned by Jade Cargo International, the first Chinese cargo carrier with foreign investment. The company was founded in 2004, but the joint venture later filed for bankruptcy.

The three Boeing freighters have been put up for auction offline six times since October 2015 but failed to find buyers.

One of the planes is currently located at Bao'an International Airport in Shenzhen, while the other two are at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai.

Almost all Chinese courts have registered on Taobao's judicial sales platform since the service was launched in 2012.

Previously, the right of use of a piece of land in the city of Yancheng in Jiangsu Province was auctioned off on Taobao for more than 2.6 billion yuan, hitting a record of online judicial auctions in China.