The Second District Court for Bankruptcy Matters of Mexico City declared Interjet in bankruptcy, after almost a year and a half of the company’s union requesting the process and several protections from the new administration of the airline.
In accordance with the ruling issued by Saúl Martínez Lira, Second District Judge for Bankruptcy Matters, the conciliation stage will be considered open for 185 calendar days from the publication of the resolution in the Official Gazette of the Federation.
The Court ruled that the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport (SICT) be requested to propose a bankruptcy conciliator within a period of five days, who, within a maximum of three days after his appointment, must notify the creditors of his appointment and indicate a domicile for the fulfillment of its obligations.
While the bankruptcy conciliator is appointed, “the administrators, managers and dependents of ABC Aerolíneas, Sociedad Anónima de Capital Variable [Interjet] will have the obligations of the depositaries with respect to the assets and rights that make up the mass,” the sentence indicated.
debt and creditors
Mexican creditors must present their credit recognition applications at the domicile of the bankruptcy conciliator. In the case of foreign creditors, there will be a period of 145 calendar days to submit their respective applications.
At the date of filing the lawsuit, Interjet owed 1,455.7 million pesos.
Interjet enters commercial bankruptcy after one year and nine months of its cessation of operations. The new administration of the airline – headed by Alejandro del Valle, who acquired the majority of the company’s shares in July 2020 and who is now in prison for sexual violence – has assured that there is a plan to rescue the airline and restart operations at the International Airport of Mexico City, in Toluca and at the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA).
The approval of the request for commercial bankruptcy comes after Section 15 – a union that represented around 5,000 airline workers before its cessation of operations – reported that the Sixth Collegiate Court in Labor Matters of the First Circuit denied a amparo promoted by the airline against the sentence that condemns it to pay 1,800 million pesos in various salaries and benefits.
However, the airline’s union has considered the return to operations of the company “impossible”, which has pending commitments with its workers, suppliers and consumers.
Restructuring or liquidation?
Despite the fact that the commercial bankruptcy was promoted by a third party, Interjet assured that it is a process whose purpose is “to achieve the conservation and start of operations” of the company through the agreement that it signs with its recognized creditors.
Although the objective of Section 15 is to enter a liquidation process to auction off the airline’s assets to pay lost wages and benefits “to the extent possible”, Interjet assured in a press release that the process will implement “a solid foundation that allows the recovery of the business and the beginning of operations”.
“It is to protect and preserve the issue of assets and order the liabilities of the company. This makes us very happy”, said Carlos del Valle, deputy general director of Interjet, in a video broadcast on his social networks, which even gave rise to an eventual contracting of credits for a restructuring under the commercial bankruptcy.
“Once the one who is going to be our conciliator is designated, we are going to ask that the issue of contracting essential credits be authorized. This helps us to strengthen so that we can continue and carry out with the subject always attached to the law to be able to request the permits and the concessions that the law establishes, committed to the most valuable thing that we have, which are our companions, the employees of this great Interjet company,” he added.
Del Valle even promised to follow up with consumers who had purchased flights with Interjet before it ceased operations.
However, Section 15 has insisted that the path is the liquidation of the assets, as it ensures that it has not received a plan to restructure the airline from its administration.
“We insist that nothing on the part of the workers would give us more pleasure than to see Interjet succeed in its restructuring and to see it fly again; however, we will not stop the process followed by the workers for the sole reason of hearing repeated promises of restructuring,” said Francisco Joaquín del Olmo, director of Section 15, in a statement sent to his members on August 3.
