[B]Bankruptcy fears at Atlas Air [/B]
This story posted yesterday in International Freighting Weekly;
"Atlas Air 's future appears in doubt as it struggles to meet a 31 March deadline for re-auditing its 2001 and 2002 figures.
The company, under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has defaulted on lease payments on six B747s and has dismissed CEO Rick Shuyler.
Three other senior executives were also shown the door – Thomas Scott, general counsel, Fred deLeeuw, senior VP of strategic planning, and Stanley Wraight, senior VP of marketing and commercial strategy.
Jeffrey Erickson, who was acting president of Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, has been named president. Director John Blue, a former president of Atlas, has replaced Shuyler on an interim basis while the search for a new CEO begins.
Profit and loss figures for the fourth quarter of last year are still awaited as part of the reaudit demand. But Atlas has revealed that wet-lease revenue plunged to US$84.5m (€77m), 45% below Q4 2001.
Although military charters and the scheduled services operated by Polar Air Cargo, acquired in late 2001, more than made up the shortfall, the heavily indebted company told the SEC last week that if its lenders made early demands for repayment, "our ongoing viability would be seriously threatened".
Atlas added it may be forced to sell some or all of its assets to survive and has deferred delivery of a B747-400F from October to September 2006.
But a US aviation analyst told IFW he thought a filing for bankruptcy was possible.
Shuyler, who had a previous run-in with the SEC when he was at Continental Airlines, was Atlas's chief financial officer before taking over as CEO when the company's charismatic founder, Michael Chowdry, died in a plane crash in January 2001.
Posted: 17/03/2003