Skylease Cargo freighter seized by Brazilian court

There is more trouble for Centurion Air Cargo and its sister carrier, Skylease Cargo. On Nov. 16, the Brazilian Regional Labor Court ordered the seizure of a Skylease 747-400F after it landed at Viracopos Airport in São Paulo. According to a report in ch-aviation, disgruntled creditors said Skylease had amassed outstanding debts of US$3.93 million,

The aircraft was impounded by Brazilian law enforcement shortly after its arrival from Miami International Airport. Pilots and ground staff filed the claim against Skylease, Centurion Cargo, Brazilian carrier Master Top Linhas Aéreas (no longer in service), and Peru’s Cielos Airline – a group of companies owned by Alfonso Rey – for unpaid overtime and contract termination payouts dating back over a four-year period.

In January of this year, Centurion settled a 2014 lawsuit with aircraft lessor AWAS, which had claimed that Centurion and Skylease Cargo were delinquent on more than $10 million in lease payments to AWAS subsidiary Pegasus Aviation Finance Co., and were trying to repossess five aircraft operated by the two carriers. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and Centurion retained the aircraft. At that same time, Aero Miami, Centurion’s landlord at MIA, sued for outstanding rent payments on its facility at the airport. In short, the group has been plagued with financial problems.

Meanwhile, earlier this week at the Latin America and Caribbean Air Transport Association meeting in Puerto Rico, IATA director Tony Tyler said the situation in Brazil is dire. “Airlines there had combined losses of nearly $500 million dollars in the first half of 2015.” He said the problems facing Brazil’s carriers were the economy, which is in deep depression with rising unemployment; the real, which has lost more than a third of its value against the U.S. dollar in the past year; and government policies, which impose crippling costs on the industry.

“Taken together, these conditions have created a perfect storm that demands government action to protect the benefits of aviation connectivity, by granting them relief from high taxes, exorbitant fuel costs and onerous regulation,” Tyler said.