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The Boeing 777 plane was seized after a UK court order involving a $ 14 million rental dispute.
A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) passenger plane has been detained by Malaysian authorities over a UK court case over the plane’s lease.
PIA broke the news on Twitter on Friday, adding that it would pursue the case through diplomatic channels.
The Boeing 777 plane was seized after a court order and alternative arrangements were made for passengers to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Pakistan.
The case involved a $ 14 million rental dispute, a PIA official said.
“A PIA plane has been detained by a local court in Malaysia, which has ruled unilaterally in a legal dispute between PIA and another party pending in a UK court,” PIA spokesperson Abdullah H said. Khan, in a statement.
“We were told the plane was seized by court order,” Khan said later in a video statement. “PIA’s legal team will pursue the matter in Malaysian court, and we hope we resolve this issue as soon as possible.”
A PIA plane has been detained by a local court in Malaysia, which ruled unilaterally in a legal dispute between PIA and another party pending in a UK court.
Passengers are picked up and other travel arrangements have been finalized.
– PIA (@Official_PIA) January 15, 2021
According to orders passed by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Thursday and seen by Reuters news agency, the plaintiff in the case is Peregrine Aviation Charlie Limited and the case concerns two jets leased from PIA by Dublin-based AerCap, the biggest plane in the world. lessor, in 2015.
They are part of a portfolio that AerCap sold to Peregrine Aviation Co Ltd, an investment unit of NCB Capital, the brokerage arm of National Commercial Bank SJSC, in 2018.
According to the interim injunction, PIA is barred from moving two aircraft from its fleet – a Boeing 777-200ER with serial number 32716 and a Boeing 777-200ER with serial number 32717 – once they land or park at Kuala Lumpur International Airport until a new hearing on the matter later this month.
Tracking data from Flightradar24 showed that only one of the two Boeing 777s covered by the court order is currently in Kuala Lumpur.
The other was last recorded in the city of Karachi in southern Pakistan last month.
AerCap, which continued under the deal to provide lease management services to Peregrine, declined to comment.
Malaysia’s Transport Ministry said in a statement on Friday that the plane was being held pending court proceedings scheduled for Jan. 24.
In a statement, PIA called the situation “unacceptable”, adding that it had requested the support of the Pakistani government to raise the issue diplomatically.
Ailing airline
With more than $ 4 billion in cumulative losses, PIA was already struggling financially when flights were stranded last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
After operations resumed in May, a PIA domestic plane crash in Karachi killed 97 out of 99 people on board.
PIA later suspended 150 pilots over questions about the authenticity of their licenses.
In June, the airline was banned from flying to the EU for six months for safety reasons due to a ban still in place.
That same month, the Vietnam Civil Aviation Authority (CAAV) restrained all Pakistani pilots flying for domestic airlines in that country over concerns over their credentials.
Al Jazeera reported Pakistani pilots in July claim fraud and improper flight certification practices within the country’s civil aviation regulator were rampant, and aviation safety was routinely compromised by airlines due to management systems faulty security, incomplete reporting and use of regulatory overrides.
In September, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) advised Pakistan to take “immediate corrective action” and suspend the issuance of any new pilot licenses following a scandal over falsified licenses .
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