Court ruling paves way for Airmall operator to return to Pittsburgh International Airport

A state appellate court on Tuesday ruled that the operator of the Airmall at Pittsburgh International Airport can return to work after being evicted over the summer.

Pennsylvania’s Superior Court reversed an August decision by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Christine Ward. Ward had denied a request for a preliminary injunction by the company that runs the concessions for the airport, Fraport Pittsburgh.

Fraport was seeking an injunction to allow it to continue to operations at the airport under the lease agreement it had through 2029 as the lawsuit proceeded.

Fraport, which has run concessions at the airport since 1992, filed a lawsuit against Allegheny County Airport Authority in June alleging that the ACAA had used bullying tactics to force it out of its lease and that its contract was illegally terminated. The lease, signed in December 2012, allows Fraport to oversee all retail and food and beverage concessions at Pittsburgh International, the lawsuit said.

Airport authority officials said they plan to appeal Tuesday’s ruling.

“Our primary responsibility is to make sure that passengers, airport staff, airline crews and residents of the cities where are our flights land are safe,” the authority said in a statement.

On June 15, Fraport employees were met by two Allegheny County Police officers and told to gather their belongings and leave immediately. At the same time, the authority emailed the airport’s tenants, including food and drink stands and stores, to tell them that the authority was now managing their leases.

The authority told Fraport in the letter terminating its lease that there had been “serious and continuing defaults” by Fraport in its airport operations, including alleged security breaches.

In August, the judge wrote that Fraport was required to show that the company would suffer immediate and irreparable harm that cannot adequately be remedied by financial damages if it was removed from the Airmall. Ward said Fraport failed to show that. Concession operations were then taken over by the airport authority.

The judge also ruled that the agreement between Fraport and the airport authority was not a lease, but rather a service contract, thus affecting the nature of the deal.

In a 19-page opinion released Tuesday, a Superior Court panel rejected both decisions, saying that the agreement between the two is, in fact, a lease.

“Although the trial court characterized the master lease as predominately a services contract, the language of the agreement could not be more clear that the agreement between Fraport and ACAA is what it says it is — a lease,” Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini wrote.

“These are two sophisticated parties and if their primary intention was to craft a services agreement, they would have labeled the document a master service agreement and not a master lease,” the panel said.

The panel continued, “We conclude that the harm to Fraport is irreparable because a real property interest is unique, and the extent of the injury to its property interest is inherently unascertainable, making the harm that it suffers incapable of being fully compensated by money damages.”

The airport authority disagreed with the ruling.

“As an airport, if we aren’t safe and secure, nothing else matters. We have no room for error when a partner chooses to misrepresent their actions and attitudes regarding ensuring the safety of passengers, airport staff and airline crews,” the airport authority said in a statement.

“We previously terminated our relationship with Fraport — which we are contractually allowed to do — because we documented careless mishandling of knives and other prohibited items on multiple occasions that were found unguarded in the terminal beyond the TSA security checkpoint,” the authority added. “Fraport misrepresented the quality of their services and their corrective action plan.”

Michael Mullaney, CEO of Fraport USA, Fraport Pittsburgh’s parent company said they are pleased with the ruling.

“We look forward to further vindicating our rights as the case progresses, while expeditiously returning to our world-class management of the Pittsburgh Airport concession program and continuing to serve the Pittsburgh community in conjunction with our subtenant partners, as we have done for the past 30 plus years,” Mullaney said in a statement.

This story was updated to include comments from Fraport Pittsburgh.