Experience / Case study
Counsel to Turkish Airlines in Somalia.
CAPABILITY
Projects & Transport · Aviation
CLIENT
Turkish Airlines, serving Mogadishu
SPAN
A multi-year standing arrangement
STATUS
Arrangement concluded
THE SITUATION
In March 2012, one airline did what no other major international carrier would: it put a scheduled service back into Mogadishu. Somalia's reconnection to the world runs through that decision.
Operating a global airline in Somalia means running international standards through a rebuilding regulatory system, every day. The legal exposure is continuous, not episodic: civil-aviation compliance, commercial contracts with ground and service providers, employment, liability, and the operating questions that arrive without warning — for a carrier whose Mogadishu service carries reputational weight far beyond its size.
WHAT WE DID
The role mature markets take for granted.
The client needed what Somalia rarely offers: a standing Somali counsel relationship — one firm, accountable over time, answering aviation-regulatory, contractual and compliance questions as they arise rather than matter by matter. Insaaf held that role under a multi-year arrangement.
Run on airline discipline.
Responsiveness, documented advice, and consistency between what the law says and what the operation can actually do — regulatory compliance, aviation-law analysis and contractual matters, handled across the operation as they arose. Airlines audit their advisers the way they audit everything else. The relationship ran for years.
THE OUTCOME
Recurring counsel arrangements are how sophisticated operators actually manage frontier-market risk — and they renew only when the counsel works. This one showed the firm holding that role for one of the most demanding client types in the market: over years, not engagements.
The team — Mohamed Abdulkadir Ali (engagement lead)
A global airline audits everything. It kept us for years.
WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU
If your operation needs a Somali legal answer on call — not a new engagement letter every time a question lands — this is the model: a retained relationship, a partner who knows your file, and advice delivered to the standards Turkish Airlines demanded.
Ask about a retained arrangement
CONTINUE
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