AirBridgeCargo Airline will pay BOC Aviation $406.2 million as per a judgement passed by the US court, Reuters reports. The carrier is being declared in default on leases for three Boeing 747-8F aircraft following the Russia-Ukraine war.
AirBridgeCargo went into default after being unable to maintain required reinsurance coverage, BOC Aviation claimed.
The defendant airline and its parent company Volga-Dnepr logistics were found liable for payment by the US District Judge Lewis Liman. In the 57-page verdict the judge said that BOC Aviation had proven that the Russian government had affected a seizure of the planes and engines by keeping them from being used outside Russia, save perhaps to areas in Ukraine or for the purposes of the war.
Post the war and sanctions imposed on Russia by the West, BOC Aviation was unable to reclaim the aircraft. BOC Aviation was able to recover one leased plane and two of its four engines, while the two other planes and two other engines remained in Russia.
Since February 2022, aircraft lessors have sued dozens of insurers and lessees for billions of dollars over hundreds of aircraft stuck in Russia.