New York: A US bankruptcy court gave the green light to AMR Corporation, parent company of bankrupt airline American Airlines, to purchase new airplanes from Airbus and Boeing.
The order, which will allow American Airlines to complete transactions it had announced in 2011 with Airbus and Boeing prior to its November 2011 filing for bankruptcy protection, comes amid a broad overhaul of the giant US carrier that has seen it reduce debt, renegotiate aircraft leases and slash labour costs by some 17 per cent.
Approving the transactions is “in the best interests of the debtors, their estates, creditors and all parties in interest,” judge Sean Lane wrote.
American Airlines had announced an order of 200 Boeing 737 planes and 260 Airbus A320s.
“We are pleased to achieve this significant milestone in our restructuring related to our fleet plan,” an AMR spokeswoman said in a statement. “By receiving these approvals from the court, we expect to continue to build the most modern, fuel-efficient fleet among US network carriers in less than five years.”
American plans to take delivery of nearly 60 new planes this year, the American spokeswoman said.
