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6-May-2010 9:33 AM

Durham Tees Valley Airport wins landmark ruling against bmibaby

UK's Durham Tees Valley Airport Limited announced (05-May-2010) it has won a landmark judgment in the Court of Appeal against bmibaby, relating to bmibaby's withdrawal of all air services from the airport in 2006. In 2004, bmibaby signed an agreement with the airport requiring it to base and operate two aircraft at the airport for 10 years. However in late 2006, the airline withdrew both aircraft to redeploy them at other UK airports and subsequently cancelled all services without warning and without agreeing with the airport any terms for its departure. At a High Court hearing in Mar-2009, it was ruled the contract was too uncertain to enable the court to award damages to the airport, because the contract did not contain any provisions detailing how many times each aircraft had to fly each day or to which destinations. However, the Court of Appeal has now confirmed bmibaby were clearly in breach of contract by withdrawing all services only two years into a 10-year agreement and as such damages should be awarded to the airport company. The Court indicated the measure of damages should be the money the airport would have received had the airline remained and operated its normal services for the remaining eight years of the contract. [more]

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