MOSCOW, December 20 (RAPSI) – The Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals has upheld the ruling to recover 429.1 million rubles ($6.6 million) of debt from Transaero in favor of another Russian airline Aeroflot, court documents read on Tuesday.

The court has dismissed an appeal filed by Transaero against the Moscow Commercial Court’s ruling issued on October 4. Aeroflot, acting as guarantor of Transaero’s financial obligations, repaid the airline’s debt owed to Gazprombank and later filed a lawsuit against Transaero.

Last December, the Moscow Commercial Court ruled to award Aeroflot the full amount of its 5 billion rubles ($80.5 million) claim against Transaero over a debt incurred under the loan agreement of September 4, 2015. Appeals courts upheld the ruling. Transaero appealed the rulings in the Supreme Court.

Some other Aeroflot suits against Transaero are reviewed by courts. In December 2015, Transaero was ordered to pay out about 5.3 billion rubles ($85 million). On January 25, the court recovered from the defendant around 2.85 billion rubles ($45.9 million) it owed to the plaintiff. A counterclaim by Transaero seeking to find the loan agreement between airlines invalid was dismissed. The Ninth Commercial Court upheld the ruling. Both rulings have already taken effect.

In 2015, Transaero found itself unable to pay its debts estimated at 250 billion rubles (about $4 billion). Government-approved plan of transferring 75% of company’s shares to Aeroflot failed. Its problems resulted in a large number of flight cancels and delays.

In October 2015, 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.

On November 23, the Commercial Court of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region postponed hearings in Sberbank’s bankruptcy claim against Transaero until March 1, 2017. Temporary manager of the airline filed a motion to postpone hearings because all demands of creditors were met.

This November, Transaero managers submitted the company’s business resumption plan. The airline’s management headed by Director General Alexander Burdin analyzed alternatives which could make it possible to return money to creditors via relaunching the airline on the base of its assets.