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Beleaguered regional carrier, Silver Airways, filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Yesterday, it announced that it was ceasing service to Anguilla’s Clayton J. Lloyd International Airport (AXA) “effective immediately.” Interestingly, the airline is blaming the government of Anguilla and accusing it of attempting to make Silver Airways break US law.
1/15/2025 Travel Advisory for AXA Travelers:
For further assistance, please contact our Guest Relations Team at +1 801-401-9100 or visit our website https://t.co/GIBiwafqWX. Safe travels, and thank you for flying with Silver Airways. #FlySilverAirways pic.twitter.com/DNvkVPCugj
— Silver Airways (@silver_airways) January 15, 2025
The airline took to social media to inform passengers that it would cease flying to the island. Silver did not provide any additional details as to what happened between the airline and the government of Anguilla. But, the government of the island nation has fired back. Silver’s permit to fly to the airport has been revoked because it owes more than $103,000 in unpaid fees.
The government of Anguilla tried to collect on Silver’s debt, but was unsuccessful. In September 2024, Silver Airways was informed that if it did not pay that its permit would be revoked. The airline had not declared bankruptcy then and is now trying to hide behind its Chapter 11 protection by saying that it’s not legally permitted to make any payments (but it still wants to fly to Anguilla).
This is not the first time that Silver Airways has had financial troubles and tried to skip out on paying its bills. In April 2023, I wrote about Silver Airways not paying its rent at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) Airport since 2021. Silver Airways owed $957,750.17 after its $113,634 security deposit was deducted. This was eventually settled, but the airline almost lost space at its hub.
Anthony’s Take: Silver Airways has said that it would be maintaining normal operations while it entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but this doesn’t seem normal. It looks like it is trying to game Anguilla and the island’s government is not playing around.
(Image Credits: Silver Airways and Government of Anguilla.)
(H/T: One Mile at a Time.)
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1 comment
This looks really ugly for Silver. I doubt they have much of a PR department, but one of the higher-ups should have recognized that the “optics” are not good for an airline to claim publicly that another entity is trying to force them to “break the law” by paying what Silver legitimately owes. (without getting into the implications of being in the midst of a Ch. 11 bankruptcy proceeding). Dropping a destination over this looks horrible, and the communication Silver released about the foreign government trying to get them to break the law comes off as over the top and lacking in credibility. It’s just a terrible PR communication.
Looking at this with the bankruptcy in mind, I have no doubt that a court order is in place forbidding Silver from entering any new contracts/binding agreements and/or making any debt payments short of receiving a court order allowing it (as is common in all Ch. 11’s). But Anguilla likely isn’t subject to any order by the US Bankruptcy court to not demand debt payment at this time. So while it would break the court order for Silver to pay the Anguilla debt right now, it is likely not illegal for Anguilla to demand payment, nor for it to ban Silver from AXA for refusal. Silver couches the potential violation of the bankruptcy court order (for paying) as “breaking US law.” This phraseology makes it sound like Anguilla is seeking for Silver to violate a US federal statute or regulation (aka a law which applies equally to everyone….for which violation or entreating another to violate would be most dastardly indeed) rather than a court order which is particularized to Silver, and the details of which are likely not known or fully understood by Anguilla.
Bottom line is it’s a terrible look and terrible PR response by Silver. Sadly, unless Silver secures debtor in possession financing soon (which they appear to face long odds on), the debacle covered in this article will be quickly eclipsed by failures of a far grander scale.