The National Industrial Court sitting in Kano has awarded former Azman Air Line Captain, Abubakar, ₦16.4 million for unpaid salaries, salary in lieu of notice and wrongful termination, ruling against the airline.
The Presiding Judge, Mahmood Namtari, ordered Azman Air to pay ₦9 million as outstanding salaries for three months in 2020, ₦2.4 million as the balance of one month’s salary in lieu of notice, and ₦5 million as damages for wrongful termination within 30 days.
Justice Namtari held that Azman Air failed to justify the reason advanced for terminating Abubakar’s employment, describing the dismissal as wrongful because the airline failed to establish a valid reason in line with settled judicial authorities and the Termination of Employment Convention.
The court found that the airline breached the termination clause contained in the employment contract by dismissing the claimant with immediate effect without simultaneously paying the agreed salary in lieu of notice, contrary to the terms binding both parties.
Court documents showed that the claimant instituted the suit after alleging that despite faithfully rendering his services to the airline, he was owed three months’ salaries in 2020, received only part of his entitlement as salary in lieu of notice and was wrongfully disengaged from service.
He claimed that following his disengagement, publications falsely portrayed him as having been dismissed for indiscipline and promoting anarchy, allegations he said severely damaged his professional reputation within the aviation industry.
The former Line Captain also accused Azman Air of effectively blacklisting him by discouraging other airlines from offering him employment while advertising vacancies for pilots shortly after terminating his appointment.
In its defence, Azman Air admitted employing Abubakar as a Line Captain but argued that the COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to review the salaries of all pilots as part of measures to address the financial challenges facing the airline.
The airline maintained that it lawfully terminated his employment in accordance with the terms of his appointment by paying one month’s salary in lieu of notice based on the revised salary structure.
It also denied owing the claimant any outstanding salaries, authorising defamatory publications or blacklisting him within the aviation industry.
Azman Air further contended that the newspaper reports relied upon by the claimant were neither authored nor authorised by the company and insisted that the recruitment of new pilots after Abubakar’s exit was a routine operational decision unrelated to his termination.
Counsel to the airline argued that the employment relationship was one of ordinary master and servant governed strictly by the contract of employment and submitted that once the requisite salary in lieu of notice had been paid, the termination could not be declared wrongful. The court was therefore urged to dismiss the suit.
In his ruling, however, Justice Namtari held that the reason contained in the termination letter was not supported by credible evidence.
He observed that apart from internal memoranda referring generally to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Azman Air failed to produce evidence demonstrating the specific developments within the company that necessitated Abubakar’s dismissal.
The judge held that the airline’s decision to advertise vacancies for new pilots shortly after disengaging the claimant contradicted its argument that prevailing economic realities required a reduction in the number of pilots in its workforce.
Justice Namtari also ruled that the internal memoranda used by Azman Air to review pilots’ salaries could neither create nor alter the contractual obligations contained in the claimant’s letter of appointment.
According to the court, there was no evidence that Abubakar accepted the salary reduction, stressing that an internal memo or requisition could not, on its own, vary the terms of a binding employment contract.
On the claimant’s allegation of defamation, the court declined to grant relief, holding that Abubakar failed to establish that the allegedly defamatory publications were made by, or at the instance of, Azman Air.
The court noted that the airline denied authoring or authorising the publications, while the publishers were neither joined as parties to the suit nor called as witnesses.