Stems From A Ticket Dispute Dating Back To 2007

A Nigerian court has ordered the seizure of an Emirates Boeing 777 to settle a decade-long dispute over a plane ticket.

Simple Flying reports that the airline owes 8.1 million Nigerian Naira ... or about $22,400 ... to Nigerian citizen Miss Promise Mekwunye over a disputed ticket.

Mekwunye purchased a ticket for travel in December, 2007 from Dallas to Lagos and back. She says the $2,067 ticket was confirmed more than three times.

But when she showed up at the gate, she was denied boarding with no other explanation than the ticket was cancelled. Emirates offered no compensation or other arrangements for her travel. Mekwunye got help from her father on a different airline using a longer route for $3,200. But there was no refund from Emirates.

The matter first went to court in 2010. A trial court awarded Mekwunye a full refund of the ticket, plus about $7,000 in damages and $700 in legal fees.

Emirates won an initial appeal, but Mekwunye escalated it to the Nigerian Supreme Court, which reinstated the damages.

Emirates has still not paid up, so a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has ordered the seizure of an aircraft to be held until such time as the airlines makes the proper restitution.

“It is accordingly ordered that an attachment is hereby issued on the judgment debtor’s aircraft registered as ‘A6 Aircraft Type 77W EK: 783/784’, or any other aircraft belonging to the judgment debtor which flies into Nigeria Territory, to be arrested and detained until the judgment debt is fully paid: in default after 30 days, the aircraft shall be auctioned to satisfy the judgment debt,” Justice Mohammed Liman said in his ruling.

Emirates is also required to pay for storage and maintenance of the airplane until it is released.

Simple Flying reports that it does not appear that any aircraft has actually been seized by Nigeria, despite multiple daily flights into the country. When contacted for a comment, Emirates siad it "respects the judgement of the Supreme Court and will follow all legal procedures related to the specific case. In the meantime, Emirates will take every measure to safeguard its operations in Nigeria to avoid any disruption to our customers."

(Image from file)

FMI: Source report