Virgin Australia has won its appeal in the Australian High Court against US aircraft lessors Wells Fargo and Willis Lease Finance, after refusing to spend $500,000 delivering four aircraft engines to Florida.
When the airline entered administration in April 2020, lessors sought to recover the engines, which the administrators agreed but refused to pay to transfer the engines back to US soil.
Although Wells Fargo and Willis Lease Finance collected the engines from Australia, they launched a legal challenge in the Federal Court to determine if Virgin was under any legal obligation to pay for the delivery of the repossessed goods.
In September 2020, Federal Court Justice John Middleton ruled in favour of the US lessors. Virgin appealed against the decision, where the judge ruled that the “give possession” term was misjudged. The decision was appealed in the High Court of Australia, which also found that under the Cape Town Convention’s aircraft protocol, the airline’s only obligation to the lessor was to provide an opportunity to take control of the repossessed engines in Australia.