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Manx company loses appeal against pilot payout

Court finds deemster followed correct approach

A company ordered to pay a pilot almost £70,000 for work lost during the Covid-19 pandemic has lost an appeal against the payout.

Captain Pablo Mueller was awarded $81,778.50 last year after Manx-registered Parc Aviation Services Limited were found to have breached his contract.

Captain Mueller was contracted to fly for Air Japan through Parc Aviation prior to Covid-19 travel restrictions coming into force in March 2020.

From May that year, the company put the pilot on an involuntary leave order, before later terminating his contract.

At a hearing in November last year, Deemster John Needham ruled Captain Mueller's contract only allowed for 5% of his working hours to be paid at a reduced rate, instead of the 20% Parc Aviation had argued.

As a result, he found the pilot had established his claim that the company owed him money, but Parc Aviation subsequently appealed this decision.

It argued the deemster failed to follow the correct approach to interpretation of the contract, with the firm's legal team describing the original judgment as 'absurd and nonsensical'.

However, the appeal found it was satisfied the deemster was correct in his assessment of the facts, dismissing the appeal in its entirety.

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