<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tom911:
Meanwhile, General Foods Credit Corp., a unit of Altria Group Inc., said it plans to repossess 18 jetliners from UAL Corp.'s United Airlines on Feb. 8 if it can't reach agreement with the carrier on new lease terms.
United on Wednesday asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago to let the airline extend all lease talks. The unit of Altria, which also is the parent of Kraft Foods and Philip Morris, doesn't want further talks, said Larry Snider, a lawyer representing General Foods Credit.
United has enough flexibility in its fleet and routes to ''enable us to reject leases like these while continuing to provide service to the customer,'' spokesman Jeff Green said.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/busin...-united01.html</font>
Altria, must know what the going market rate for jetliners are in this enviroment, where tons of aircraft, many brand new white tails, are parked in the desert. This would lead me to believe, that either UAL is asking to lease them at well under even the current depressed market rates, or, Altria hasn't got a clue, and would rather park them in the desert themselves. Perhaps they are banking on re leasing em out a few years from now? This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Not when a lot of leasing companies have new planes they are practically willing to give away. I wonder if a lot of this could be posturing on both sides, with a lot of hardball being played?