State-run, Air India has floated a tender for selling its six Boeing 737 freighters, which puts an end to its plans to start a cargo service.

The company decided to sell the aircrafts instead of accepting an offer to lease out five of its eight Boeing 777-200 planes for 8-10 years. It also plans to leaseback first seven Boeing 787 Dreamliners, which it is expecting to receive till June 2012.

The tender includes eight aircraft engines, four auxiliary power units, aircraft seats and spares beside the aircrafts themselves. The Technical Bids, which would be based on the highest bid (H1), would be opened on February eight.

The freighter, which are three decades old re up for sale on 'as is, where is' basis. They belonged to the Indian Airlines, which was merged into Air India by the Indian government. Three of these planes were used for postal charters for the India Post.

The planes were passenger aircrafts that were converted into cargo carriers in 2007 under plans to launch a pan-India cargo service using Nagpur as the hub. The airline then cancelled the plans for the cargo service due to financial crisis and has been planning to sell these aircrafts since early 2010.

The aviation firm has also sold four Airbus A-310 freighters.