Johnny Champion

Aviation Disputes & Aviation Regulation & Commercial

Advise and represent financiers, lessors, airlines, operators and owners on contentious issues concerning:
•    Finance, operating and wet leases
•    Pre-delivery and redelivery of aircraft
•    MROs, suppliers and operational partners
•    Airports, slots coordinator and ANSPs

Advise airlines and operators on regulatory issues concerning:
•    Licencing, approvals and operational requirements
•    Air operations and airworthiness
•    Airport slots and traffic rights 
•    Consumer protection and passenger rights
•    Advertising and ‘greenwashing’

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Disputes: Finance, operating and wet leases 

• Lessee / borrower defaults, including claims for outstanding rent, maintenance reserves, security deposit, indemnities, and under guarantees.
• Grounding, termination of leasing, and repossession of aircraft and engines following the occurrence of events of default.
• Restructuring and insolvency, including the Cape Town Convention remedies. 
• Shop visits of engines, APUs and landing gears, and airframe C-Checks and structural repairs, including whether they qualify for reimbursement from accrued maintenance reserves / lessor maintenance contribution.

Disputes: Pre-delivery and redelivery of aircraft

• Pre-delivery payment (PDP) financing, sale and leaseback transactions, step in rights under aircraft purchase agreements, OEM delivery and passenger-to-freighter (P2F) conversion delays, including excusable and non-excusable delays.
• Compliance with return conditions, holdover rent, aircraft documents (including back-to-birth traceability), buy-out of redelivery conditions, return acceptance certificates, and de-registration and export. 

Disputes: MROs, suppliers and operational partners

• Work performed by maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) organisations, including whether costs within / excluded from NTE caps, liens (right of retention) asserted by MROs for alleged outstanding amounts, and threat to part-out / sell the aircraft.   
• Manufacturing and production faults / defects, compliance with type certification and initial and continuing airworthiness concerns.
• Airport services agreements, grounding handling contracts, de-icing equipment maintenance contracts, and other supplier contracts, including under performance, complex payment reconciliation mechanisms, and exercise of termination rights.

Disputes: Airports, slots coordinator and ANSPs

• Airport and grounding handling fees and charges, including discriminatory pricing and state aid.
• Challenging sanctions and fines imposed by airport slots coordinator for alleged operation at times significantly different from allocated slots.
• Challenging air navigation charges imposed by ANSPs, and their failure to adequately resource and manage provision of ATC services.

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Regulation: Licensing, approvals and operational requirements

• Establishing subsidiary airline in the UK (including foreign ownership shareholding rules), foreign carrier permits, operating licences, air operator certificates, wet-lease in approvals.
• Flight and cabin crew and maintenance personnel licences, ramp inspections.
• Restructuring of Part-145 maintenance network in UK and across the EU.
  Transportation of dangerous goods by air.
   

Regulation: Air operations and airworthiness

• Air operations and initial and continuing airworthiness requirements, including alternative means of compliance (AltMoCs), acceptable means of compliance (AMCs) and guidance materials (GMs).
• Continuing airworthiness management expositions (CAMEs), operation manuals, leasing manuals and white-lists.
• Airworthiness directives (ADs), service bulletins (SBs), and engineering orders (EOs).
   

Regulation: Airport slots and traffic rights

• Slots allocation and trading (transfers and swaps / exchanges), slot compliance monitoring and misuse of slots.
• Air traffic management issues.
• Route licenses, and impact of sanctions.
   

Regulation: Consumer protection and passenger rights

• Enforcement actions brought by Court Enforcement Agents, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (UK CAA), and EU Consumer Protection Network.
• Passenger compensation, including obligation to refund and pay damages for delays, denied boarding, and injury suffered.
• Disruptive passenger (DPAX) incidents, including associated civil and criminal actions.
• Conditions of carriage and booking terms, including misleading or unfair commercial practices that impact enforceability.
• Compliance with evolving EU and UK consumer protection regulations, including drip-pricing, no-show policies, and subscriptions terms.
   

Regulation: Advertising and ‘greenwashing’

• Proposed advertising campaigns, including compliance with advertising standards and codes, and approvals from Clearcast.
• Investigations brought by UK Advertising Standards Authority into alleged misleading campaigns, notably, in respect of airlines’ sustainability initiatives / ‘green’ credentials.