Aer Lingus Wins Three-Decade Legal Battle in India Over Airport Fees
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Aer Lingus has secured a favorable ruling in a legal dispute that lasted three decades in India, concerning airport fees for aircraft that the Irish airline never operated in the country. The court has ordered the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to pay 10 million rupees (€109,983) to Aer Lingus.
The dispute began in 1993 when two Boeing 737 aircraft belonging to Aer Lingus were leased to the now-defunct Indian airline East-West Airlines. After East-West Airlines went bankrupt in 1996, Aer Lingus took legal action to reclaim the aircraft, but the AAI attempted to detain them as leverage to collect outstanding airport fees.
To secure the release of the planes, Aer Lingus was required to provide a bank guarantee for the amount claimed. Once this condition was met, the aircraft were flown back to Dublin in 1997, with a stopover in Izmir, Turkey. They were later sold to a European lessor and eventually operated in Kenya. However, the dispute over the airport fees dragged on for 28 years.
In recent weeks, a law firm in India representing Aer Lingus successfully argued that the AAI had no legal grounds to demand landing and parking fees from the Irish airline, as the responsibility lay with East-West Airlines, which is now in liquidation.
The Bombay Civil Court ruling in Airports Authority of India v Aer Lingus Ltd has been regarded as a precedent in the regulation of liability within the aviation industry, according to the India Business Law Journal.
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