Alfa,

Thanks for your reasoned analysis...

My recollection from DAL's bankruptcy is that Delta tried pretty hard to drive a hard bargain for lease rates on aircraft. Again, this is from memory but most lessors went along and cut their rates, in some cases dramatically. I also believe that we lost three 767-ERs and the leasing companies placed them with Hawaiian-who was willing to pay more. At the time we had 15 MD-90s and I was surprised we didn't try and dump them as they were such a small fleet.

In bankruptcy a carrier can drive hard bargains, and if they get court approval, simply walk away from various real estate agreements. In fact I read one of AMR's first legal moves was to terminate it's obligations with respect to the maintenance facility at MCI they acquired when they bought TWA.

I think Delta successfully got out of some real estate obligations at LAX, but I don't remember specifically what they were (the old Western Airlines offices?).

This is just speculation on my part, but from first glance AMR is going about this smarter than Delta did. AMR went into chapter 11 with enough cash to avoid DIP financing and the loss of control that goes with that. Delta on the other hand made several "pacts with the devil" to gain additional financing. Two that come to mind are the one-sided long term agreement with SkyWest, and accepting some 70 seat RJs from GE capital under lousy terms.