Insolvency petitions filed by lessors not maintainable: SpiceJet
SpiceJet on Friday claimed in the bankruptcy court that two insolvency petitions filed against it by two aircraft lessors — Wilmington Trust SP Services (Dublin) Ltd and Celestial Aviation Services Ltd — were not maintainable.
The low-cost airline informed the National Company Law Tribunal that Wilmington was not the owner of the aircraft leased by it and so it is not an operational creditor to file an insolvency petition. Opposing the Celestial Aviation case, SpiceJet argued that five operational creditors had filed a combined petition, so it was not maintainable.
In the Wilmington case, SpiceJet claimed that the owner of the aircraft was BOC Aviation Ltd, which had transferred the ownership to Aircaste (Ireland) Ltd and.
Wilmington, it said, was a trustee, and a trustee «is only entrusted with the property and cannot become the owner of the property». «He's not the owner of the aircraft, so in what capacity does he become the operational creditor,» the airline's counsel argued He said the invoices had the name of Aircastle (Ireland) Ltd, which was earlier referred to as Klaatu Aircraft Leasing (Ireland) Ltd.
An amendment to the lease agreement made on February 5, 2021, also had no mention of Wilmington, he said.
ET had \reported that Aircastle had rejected the airline's offer to allocate shares in lieu of dues owed by it. The counsel representing Wilmington argued that the lease agreement was in its name and the registration of aircraft by civil aviation regulator Director General of Civil Aviation was also made in its name.
