Aeroland Travels sues Turkish Airlines 100m over questionable penalty

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Aeroland Travels Nigeria Limited has sued the Turkish Airlines a sum of 100 million naira, as damages over unwarranted penalty claims drawn from its International Air Transport Association (IATA) account.

The suit duly filed against Turkish Airlines at the Lagos High Court, Ikeja Division, cited an obvious fleecing of Aeroland Travels of the sum of N56,728,861.00 and $8,321.00 which surfaced as debit memo on trump up basis.

According to the court proceeding made available to newsmen the defendant (Turkish Airline) action was declared as one, “causing a debit memo in the sum of N56,728,861.00 and $8,321.00 to be issued and charged against the claimant’s IATA account in respect of the ticket bookings which was fully paid for by the Claimant is wrongful, unlawful or illegal.

The Court also gave: “An order for payment of the sum of N56,728,861.00 and $8,321.00 by the Defendant to the Claimant being wrongful, unlawful and illegal debit.
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Also, the court directed the defendant to pay general damages a sum of 100,000,000(one hundred million naira) to the claimant with Interest on the adjudged sum at the maximum prevailing bank rate of 26.3% per annum from the 1st day of January,2024 until the entire sum and interest thereon is fully and finally liquidated.

In a chat with newsmen on Thursday Otunba Segun Adewale the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Aeroland Travels Nigeria Limited declared with cited evidence, that they received a fraudulent debit of 78million naira in their account for no infractions whatsoever.

“Despite the fact that there was no warning or communication affirming that there was any error on any of our tickets issued from January till September 2023 and that monies were collected in full without any problems or issues regarding the sales.

“It is disheartening that not within a week or month but after a whole year, we just received a debit memo as penalty for wrong ticketing entry which was not recorded while the process was going on and in actual fact sales and payments were made in dollars to avoid any problems, fines or penalties.

“I make bold to state that till date, we are yet to receive any correspondence from the said airline either by text message, email or voice note stating clearly if there are wrong ticketing entry.

“All we got suddenly was a heavy or draconian penalty charge, purposely to fleece us and believing we won’t dare report or fight the case like every other agencies they killed in the past.

“I have also reported the case to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to help look into the arbitrary penalties which is strange to our business.

“We have never received such charges from any airlines since our 30 years of doing business, it is just unimaginable.

“By the summary of ADM from Turkish Airlines between 2023 to 2024 both in Naira and Dollars the total invoice was “N220m and $33500.

“Our IATA account has been outrageously pilfered of a huge amount- 89 million naira so far, we cannot keep quiet and watch the fleece continue unabated.” Adewale said.