The airline could tell its lessors it will terminate leases on, say, all its Boeing 757's and sign new leasing agreements on only the first dozen handed to it under generous conditions.
General Electric has offered to rope off its aircraft lessor from GE Capital, the financing company that is its immediate parent, and to keep it at arms length from Honeywell's products.
"We would like to confirm that we are curtailing our widebody overseas operations that are bleeding heavily," the airline said, adding that it had already returned one Airbus A330-200 to its British lessor as a result.
The soft market in air travel, while hobbling United's ability to make money on fares, hands it a hefty cudgel as it walks into cost-cutting negotiations with its aircraft lessors and unions.
American will still have to get significant savings from its aircraft lessors and suppliers, they say, as well as figure out a way to overhaul a broken business model.
Union leaders also said they wanted an extension of the current contract and demanded that Delta look for cost cuts from its other employee groups and from its suppliers and lessors.
Bombardier, the world's third-largest civil aircraft maker after the Boeing Company and Airbus Industrie, said the sale to the General Electric Company unit is the first major order from an operating lessor for its family of regional jets.
Late today, the company received a notice of default from Bank One, its primary lender and equipment lessor.
If the market is less than the lease end value, then let the lessor take it back.
The carrier, which once flew both scheduled and chartered service, said in February that it planned to reduce the size of its fleet by returning planes to their lessor.
