Moldova’s First Aviation School Entered Bankruptcy Proceedings

The state enterprise Centrul Aeronautic de Instruire, which claims to be the first aviation school in Moldova, has entered bankruptcy proceedings. The reason is the accumulated debts to creditors, as well as to the state budget. For instance, data from the State Tax Service from the beginning of 2024 indicate arrears of about half a million lei, while updated data for the beginning of April 2024 indicate arrears of more than one million lei to the state and local budgets. Bankruptcy proceedings were initiated in October 2021 on the application of a number of private creditors, including former employees. At the same time, the court applied insurance measures to the real estate where the Aviation Training Centre is located. On 4 September 2023, the Public Property Agency (the body in charge of managing state property) filed a lawsuit requesting the cancellation of the insurance measures applied to the real estate where the Aviation Training Centre is located. However, PPA representatives did not attend any hearing of the insolvency court in which the application for cancellation of insurance measures was considered. The last hearing was held on 10 April 2024, which the PPA representatives missed again. The court found that the representative of the Public Property Agency was lawfully summoned. Given these circumstances, the representative of the state enterprise Centrul Aeronautic de Instruire “demanded in the court session the withdrawal of the application for cancellation of the arrest”. As a result, the Chisinau court rejected the PPA application, noting that according to Art. 206, para. (2) of the Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Moldova, “if the plaintiff, legally notified of the place, date and time of the court hearing, does not appear in court and does not provide the reason for not appearing in court or if the reasons are recognized by the court as unfounded, or if the plaintiff does not request to hear the case in his absence and the defendant does not request the resolution of the case on the merits, the court excludes the application from the list, if this procedural action does not violate the rights of other participants in the judicial process”. It should be noted that the Aviation Training Centre was founded in 1999 and positioned itself as “the first aviation school in Moldova”. According to the latest information available, it specialized in providing training courses for pilots and flight attendants and the activities are based on international programmes approved by the Civil Aviation Authority. However, the Centre’s phone numbers are no longer valid and the information about the business on the app page is no longer available as the website is not functioning at the moment.