MOSCOW, November 9 (RAPSI) – The Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals has upheld the dismissal of a claim filed by Russian airline Transaero seeking to collect 595 million rubles ($7.6 million) of government grants from the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviation), the court records read on Wednesday.

This August, a commercial court dismissed the airline’s claim in full. In its lawsuit, Transaero demanded 595 million rubles ($7.6 mln) from Rosaviation, which, as the plaintiff alleged, refused to transfer the compensation due to the airline for socially important carriage of passengers in Russia’s Far East regions. The defendant maintained that Transaero failed to present certain documents needed to proceed its request for compensation.

The court ruled that according to the data provided by the Russian Pension Fund the defendant was in debt with regard to obligatory payments to the state budget, what precluded the transfer of subsidies.

Transaero found itself unable to pay its debts estimated to make 250 billion rubles (about $4 billion) and had to stop its flights last October. 

At that time, Sberbank and Alfa Bank filed bankruptcy petitions against the troubled airline. The Commercial Court of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region initiated a bankruptcy procedure against Transaero on December 16, 2015, and ruled to introduce observation procedure in the company.