AirX Jet Support v London Jet Centre (Stansted): High Court refuses interim order to repair hangar roof

The High Court has declined to order temporary repairs to a leaking aircraft hangar roof, finding that damages remained an adequate remedy and that the claimants lacked the assurance needed for a mandatory injunction.

In AirX Jet Support Ltd v London Jet Centre (Stansted) Ltd [2026] EWHC 2558 (BP), His Honour Judge Richard Carter, sitting as a High Court judge, dismissed the claimants' application for an order making the roof watertight. The claimants, a private jet airline and charter provider, occupy half of a hangar at Stansted Airport and say the roof leaks onto their aircraft and equipment. The defendants accept an implied term of fitness for purpose extending in principle to roof repair, but dispute its scope. A deputy judge had earlier ordered heating to be supplied and adjourned the roof application for expert evidence.

Inconclusive expert evidence

All three surveyors found no ingress at inspection and agreed the roof, about 37 years old, had outlived its expected life. The claimants' expert could not say whether it was currently watertight, proposed temporary works costing £512,000 to £1.2 million, and recommended replacement. The defendants' expert considered it watertight and proposed works costing £128,000, though he had not consulted manufacturers on retrofitting fixings and approval was thought unlikely.

Neither expert had considered the claimants' photographs and videos. The judge accepted that water had entered during exceptionally poor weather, but could not determine how much came through the roof rather than the hangar doors.

Remedy and balance of convenience

The judge applied American Cyanamid and found a serious issue to be tried. On adequacy of damages, however, the deputy judge's earlier finding for the claimants no longer held, because it had rested on a repair estimate of about £18,250. The claimants' losses were poorly evidenced and at best around £250,000 over two years. A regulator's report they relied on concerned temperature, not the roof, and leaks had been managed by cordoning off and cleaning, with roughly eight incidents in nine months. The cross-undertaking would adequately protect the defendants.

On balance of convenience, the judge drew on National Commercial Bank Jamaica v Olint, which treats classification as mandatory or prohibitory as a "box-ticking" exercise. The question is the practical consequence of the order. Where compliance would cause irremediable prejudice, a high degree of assurance of success is the starting point.

He could not find it. The pleaded repairing covenant is broader than an implied fitness-for-purpose term, and the claimants had not shown they could require the roof to be kept watertight. Nor was the case within the exceptional category in Parker v Camden LBC, which involved risk to physical wellbeing. There was no evidence of danger to staff, and any risk could be mitigated by the claimants as occupier and employer.

Without that assurance, the claimants had to show a sufficiently greater risk of injustice if relief were refused. The judge found irremediable prejudice to the defendants despite the cross-undertaking, since it would bite only at the end of proceedings, after substantial spending on temporary works carrying caveats about guarantees. The claimants' likely loss could not outweigh that.

The application was dismissed, and the parties were invited to agree a draft order.