By Charlotte Greenfield, Joseph Sipalan and Liz Lee
ISLAMABAD / KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – A Pakistan International Airlines plane was detained by Malaysian authorities due to a British court case over the jet’s lease, the airline said on Friday, adding it would take the matter to diplomatic channels.
The Boeing 777 was seized after a court order, an airline spokesman said, and alternative arrangements were being made for passengers flying from Kuala Lumpur back to Pakistan.
The case involved a $ 14 million lease dispute, said a PIA official.
“A PIA aircraft was detained by a local Malaysian court that took a unilateral decision regarding a legal dispute between PIA and another party pending in a UK court,” said PIA spokesman Abdullah H. Khan , in a statement.
“We were informed that the plane was seized by court order,” Khan said in a video. “PIA’s legal team will sue you in the Malaysian court and we hope to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”
According to orders passed by the Kuala Lumpur Supreme Court on Thursday seen by Reuters, the perpetrator of the case is Peregrine Aviation Charlie Limited and the issue concerns two jets leased to PIA by Dublin’s AerCap, the largest car rental company in Dublin. aircraft in the world 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 provisional injunction, PIA is prevented from moving two aircraft in its fleet – a Boeing 777-200ER with serial number 32716 and a Boeing 777-200ER with serial number 32717 – once they have landed or parked at the Airport Kuala Lumpur International until a new hearing on the matter later this month.
The 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 Karachi last month. AerCap, which continued as part of the agreement to provide rental management services to Peregrine, declined to comment.
Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad, the country’s airport operator, and its subsidiary were required to ensure that the aircraft did not leave Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
The Malaysian Ministry of Transport said in a statement on Friday that the aircraft was detained pending legal procedures scheduled for January 24.
Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd said the matter was not related to airport operations.
The PIA in a statement described the situation as “unacceptable”, adding that it had asked for support from the Pakistani government to raise the issue diplomatically.
The office of the Prime Minister of Malaysia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Pakistani High Commissioner in Malaysia is “in close contact with the relevant Malaysian authorities and Pakistan International Airlines to address the issue,” said ministry spokesman Zahid Hafeez, adding that passengers will be flown home on the Friday.
With more than $ 4 billion in accumulated losses, PIA was already struggling financially when flights stopped last year due to the pandemic.
After resuming operations in May, a PIA domestic flight accident in Karachi killed 97 of the 99 people on board.
Pakistan’s aviation industry was hit by a scandal in which pilots were found with “dubious” licenses – which led several countries to ban PIA from operating flights in their jurisdictions.
The airline was banned from flying to the European Union for six months due to safety compliance issues under a ban still in place.
(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, Syed Raza Hassan in Karachi, Joseph Sipalan and Liz Lee by Kuala Lumpur and Tim Hepher in Paris; Written by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Jason Neely, Susan Fenton and Louise Heavens)