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09/02/2012 Buenos Aires Herald - Nota - Economía - Pág. 6

American Airlines seeks a deal on its debt to emerge from bankruptcy

Third-largest US airline declines to say how it plans to do it.

SAO PAULO — American Airlines is renegotiating terms of US$1.6 billion in debt owed to Brazil’s state development bank to help it emerge more rapidly from bankruptcy in the United States, a Brazilian newspaper said yesterday.

American Airlines chief executive Thomas Horton, who was named in November to the top post at the third-largest US airline, declined to say how the company plans to pay the debt, according to a report by Valor Econômico.

The airline’s parent company, AMR Corp, wants to rework terms of the debt, which it incurred to finance the purchase of Embraer planes between 1998 and 2002, as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.

The company filed for bankruptcy in November, saddled with over US$30 billion in debt and a flagging market for its business.

It could return some planes to Embraer and pay down a portion of the bank debt, Horton told Valor, naming one potential alternative the company is working with.

“Embraer will assist both American Airlines and the development bank in the reassignment of the aircraft,” an Embraer press representative said in a telephone interview, adding that the company sees American’s restructuring as an opportunity for future sales of larger jets such as the Embraer 175.

Press representatives for American Airlines did not rcomment while a spokesman at the bank did not have a comment on the Valor report.

NEW TERMINAL. In related news, Brazil’s busiest airport yesterday opened a new terminal meant to handle as many as 5 million domestic passengers a year.

Infraero, the government agency that operates airports, said the 85 million real (US$49.4 million) terminal in Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos international airport will handle domestic flights, which account for more than 60 percent of the passengers using the airport.

Rio de Janeiro-based Webjet is the first line to use the new terminal, which is a bit more than two kilometres from the airport’s runways, so buses will ferry passengers to and from their planes.

The agency says the new terminal is included in the privatization contract the Invepar consortium won this week to operate and expand the airport for 20 years.

Brazil’s Investimentos e Participacoes em Infraestrutura SA controls 90 percent of Invepar. Airports Company South Africa controls the rest.

Reuters, AP

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