Silver Airways Kicked Out Of Anguilla, Makes Up Absurd Lie To Shift Blame

The person writing that airline press release probably has a great career ahead as the worst kind of lowlife spin doctor at some PR hack shop. Amazing how some people have the gall to completely reverse who is responsible for something when trying to win points in the public light. I bet if they were forced to put their name at the end of the press release they'd hesitate a bit more.

Ubelievable. There's a regulation that says that you have to pay your debts?

Wow, can't wait for deregulation to come fast enough!

I hear social media companies are flush with cash after laying off a bunch of content moderators, and are looking to hire professional spin doctors. They have a long and lucrative career ahead of them.

I wonder if the airport could have acted sooner to seize one of their planes to pay the debt, given it's been going on 2 years. Although I suppose getting a court judgement takes a while.

They're full of excuses on their site so I posted this article and they've been mum so far! 🙂

In Anguilla now and been coming for more than 10 years. I don't know Silver's traffic numbers but I suspect scuttling their service from SJU is not a great loss for the people here. Most islanders I know ferry or charter boat to SXM and fly out of there. AA has 2-3 flights a day direct to AXA from MIA.

Silver Airways is what happens when one of those scam airlines actually goes to the trouble of (sometimes) operating flights.

Not to be hyper technical, and without defending the precise wording of the press releases, it could indeed be a violation of US law to made a "preference" payment to Anguilla right now (the period actually goes back 90 days before filing) without court approval. And bankruptcy law in the US generally does not permit counterparties to debtors to terminate executors contracts unilaterally simply because of nonpayment or bankruptcy filing (that's why, for example, you don't see immediate evictions upon bankruptcy where past rent is one of the unpaid debts).

Now the PR angle, I'll leave that to others.

Via Chapter 11, the initial filing would list the top 10 debts outstanding. However, wouldn't Silver need to eventually list each creditor as part of its legal process. Would be nice to see the detailed list because I feel there are other airports that are owned money.

I say this because in the Sears bankruptcy, it listed a store near New Orleans that it claimed it owned as an asset. However, the owner of the corresponding shopping center had purchased the same building a few years earlier from Sears for future potential development. The shopping center had to make an emergency filing to have the store removed from the asset list. I understand the judge in the case wasn't too happy with the sloppy info from Sears.

I should add to my last comment that companies also typically file "first day motions" for court permission to pay critical vendors. If the airline didn't do that maybe they're blameworthy but I don't know enough about airline bankruptcies to know whether that would be standard in such a filing.

(And a typo above; *executory contracts)

Flew them a few years ago from Harbour Island to FLL. Only airline I swore I'd never fly them again. The return was delayed 5 hours - fine, that happens every now and again - but the customer service was the worst I've ever experienced. Would rather pay 5x for the Delta or AA flights to go there than deal with Silver again.

The Government of Anguilla is not subject to "bankruptcy law in the US". Silber Airways knew this, or should have.

Right, but Silver Airways is. So their payments to Anguilla would be.

And they are indeed subject as a creditor -- if they want to collect, they're going to have to do it against US assets presumably, so they'll have to comply with US bankruptcy law. This happens all the time. Sovereigns are not categorically exempt from the provisions of the bankruptcy code that proscribe certain forms of creditor self help.

Just looked it up -- Spirit, for example, expressly sought court permission to pay airport fees and the like, because they wanted to keep operating of course. Not sure what Silver asked for or is hoping to accomplish in bankruptcy.

Why has nobody asked what the debts are? Are they legitimate (not bribes), what was the cause of the debts, why were they not being paid as they went, etc.? Everyone's so quick to agree with whoever got the last word in. I'm saying this as someone who doesn't really know where Anguilla is and had never heard of Silver Airlines before this article, so I have no stake in the game.

Companies circling the drain have been known to pander to the patriotic American flag crowd

That's not how things work in Anguilla. There isn't corruption there.

Sounds like Silver is either purposely or ignorantly taking a position that represents a fundamental misinterpretation of bankruptcy law and the automatic stay. The question of whether Anguilla has the ability to continue trying to collect this debt right now is dependent on the facts -- but the question of whether they are within their rights to prohibit Silver from continuing to operate in their country doesn't seem open for debate...of course they are. If they want advice on how to continue operating international routes as an insolvent carrier, I can think of plenty of airlines that are experts in that.

Which is probably why Silver had canceled everything to Anguilla for the last week (last operated there on 1/8) because I'm guessing the government said pay up and Silver started canceling flights lest the government of Anguilla find themselves with an ATR to seize.

I've seen the list of the top 10 debts and at least FLL and TPA airports are on there (plus a lot of the owners of their leased aircraft). They owe money to pretty much every airport they serve including a few they dropped without notice like BNA and GSO (not to mention their ground handlers there).

I don't think claiming you have no idea where Anguilla is, is quite the flex you think it is in in supporting the intellectual strength of your questions.

Nothing to do with collection. Being in bankruptcy doesn't compel another party outside the US to let them incur further debts.