WASHINGTON, October 15 (RIA Novosti) – A Yakutia Airlines Boeing 737 that spent weeks parked on the tarmac of an Alaskan airport due to a legal dispute over millions of dollars in allegedly unpaid leasing fees has returned to Russia, the Alaska Dispatch has reported.
The plane was released last week and is now “back in Russia under the airline’s control” Mark Dudley, regional director for Seattle-based InterPacific Aviation and Marketing told the Dispatch.
Dudley, whose firm handles the marketing for Yakutia Airlines’ weekly flights between Russia and Anchorage did not confirm precisely why the plane had been allowed to return to Russia, but was quoted Monday as saying that it was “presumably because all disagreements between the parties had been resolved.”
The Boeing 737 was grounded at the Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage on Sept. 26 when representatives of International Lease Finance Corp. (ILFC), which owns the airplane, presented the Yakutia Airlines captain with legal papers before the last flight of the season departed, leaving eight passengers unable to board the return flight to Russia.
ILFC, the largest aircraft leasing company in the world, claimed it was owed $2.6 million in back lease payments by Yakutsk-based Yakutia Airlines which had leased two 737s worth a total of $54 million from the firm.
