High Court approves Aer Arann rescue plan
The High Court has approved a rescue plan for Aer Arann, allowing the airline to come out of examinership.
This evening at the High Court Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan said that she was satisfied to approve the a scheme of arrangement prepared by the airline's examiner, Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton, once certain modifications are made to the scheme.
The scheme had been approved by the majority of the airline's creditors.
The court also heard that the Revenue Commissioner were prepared to drop its initial objections to the scheme being approved.
Under the modified proposals, Revenue will receive 22% of what they are owed within 29 days, with the remaining 78% to be paid within 18 months.
The court made its ruling after receiving submissions from Mr McAteer in response to "serious and significant concerns" expressed by the judge last week over the scheme.
The judge had previously said that the court could not approve the scheme unless it was satisfied the airline, which employs 300 people, had a reasonable prospect of survival. She said she had insufficient information on a number of matters in that regard.
After receiving additional material from the examiner the Judge said she was satisfied that the modified scheme allowed the court form the view that the airline had a reasonable prospect of survival as a going concern.
Those modifications include clarifying which classes of the airline's creditors come within the scheme and which ones do not.
The airline went into examinership after the High Court was informed it was insolvent and unable to pay its debts Creditors of the airline are owed more than €29m with Allied Irish Banks, owed €5.2m, the largest creditor.
The survival plan has secured the support of none out of the 12 classes of creditors, including AIB.
It was proposed that some of the airlines creidtors will receive all of what they are owed, however other under the scheme will get between 10% and 12% of what they are owed.
