Delhi HC orders Paramount Air to ground half its fleet
20th Mar, 10, financial expess
Paramount Airways has been asked to ground half of its fleet strength of six aircraft by the Delhi High Court on Friday. In a major setback for the Chennai-based airline, the court declined its plea to maintain a status quo on the three Embraer planes till the next hearing schedueld for Monday. The airline had said immediate grounding of the aircraft will create problems for their passengers.
When contacted, an official spokesperson of Paramount Airways said, “We will reroute all the passengers who have booked for the next two to three days to Kingfisher and Jet Airways and we will also combine the routes to a maximum level with our remaining fleets. We don’t see any major impact on our operations as the Delhi HC will announce its final verdict on Monday. We will run the remaining two fleet at an optimum level to ensure smooth run.” The case is about an order of civil aviation regulator DGCA (Director General of Civil Aviation) which grounded three aircraft of Paramount out of its total fleet strength of five, owing to a leasing dispute with UK based GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS).
Paramount had approached the high court challenging the DGCA’s earlier decision.
The Paramount spokesperson said the airline “is flying as usual and as per schedule.” He claimed Paramount had no dues to GECAS or any other party. He also said Paramount has not been ordered by any court to ground its aircraft.
Paramount is involved in a dispute with the UK-based GE Capital Aviation Services for the last 10 months. The dispute had arisen as Paramount asked for a reimbursement of the maintenance reserves created on various checks carried out. The lack of response from GECAS led to the dispute. GECAS in its capacity of a leasing company was looking to deregister the aircraft due to the dispute and DGCA in turn ordered grounding of three of Paramount’s fleets.
The company also won the dispute with GECAS in London High Court and then moved the Delhi HC to revoke the DGCA’s order on de-registering three of Paramount's fleets. Paramount Airways had been awarded a positive judgment by the London HC against GECAS over the pending dispute on maintenance reserves and deposit refund thus putting an end to months of speculation.
Paramount Airways claimed it had made a $15 million deposit to GECAS - $5 million as deposit and $10 million as maintenance reserves.
The dispute had arisen as Paramount asked for a reimbursement of the maintenance reserves created on various checks carried out....
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