Air Peace now has good case to reorder another brand from Boeing—Lawyer
Relying on the latest position of United States aviation manufacturing giant, Boeing to ground further production of the ill-fated 737 Max 8 brand, Nigeria’s Air Peace now stands on a strong footing to redirect its $1.9bn order for 10 pieces to another untroubled brand of Boeing.
This was the submission of a Lagos lawyer, Chief Mike Unegbu in an interview with Business Hilights.
He said “I have studied the preliminary reaction of Air Peace when global grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 8 fleet started emerging and I gave Air Peace strong accolades for not joining the bandwagon until now the coast of contract review on the order is naturally and legally clear”.
“In law this matter can be seen as a force majeure and never will it be seen as a breach of contract on the side of Air Peace if it calls on Boeing for a review of the $1.9bn in favour of another brand of its product considering the fact that the global community has technically suspended the use and its money is involved.
“As it is now, the financial commitments so far made by Air peace cannot go down the drains, rather, a fresh review of the terms will need to be done sooner so that Air Peace will equally remain in business.
“In fact, this is where the Federal Government will come in to work with the leading indigenous carrier in discussion with Boeing for another good brand from its basket of commercial planes as soon as possible. I said this because the Nigerian authority in charge of our skies has banned 737 Max 8 and US government has followed other parts of the world in grounding the brand.
Business Hilights recalls that even though Air Peace is yet to issue any statement on its next plan of action, indications are rife that it will work with the government to recover its part payment for the supply of 10 Boeing 737 Max 8 air planes which may come in form of redirection of the order for another acceptable brand in Boeing’s basket.
As at Wednesday, the U.S. President Donald Trump issued an emergency order to ground Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 aircraft after a crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people.
Already, the EU had issued warning not to see the brand on its air space as other parts of the world had earlier joined the league of aviation authorities that have banned the brand usage.
The federal Government had after its weekly Federal Executive Council meeting Wednesday, announced the ban on Nigeria’s air space even though no local carrier is using the brand.
Trump told newsmen at the White House that “We are going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 MAX 8 and the 737 MAX 9 and planes associated with that line”.
Whereas Canada also grounded 737 MAX jets, saying satellite data suggested similarities to a previous crash involving the same plane model, other countries around the world have grounded the 737 MAX jets or banned them from flying over their airspace since the Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed soon after taking off from Addis Ababa on Sunday.
Business Hilights recalls that the still unexplained crash followed another involving a Boeing 737 MAX in Indonesia five months ago that killed 189 people.
