Northwest Sells 7 Planes to ATA

Northwest Airlines Corp. has said it won't release details of a deal it has reached to sell seven airplanes to ATA Airlines Inc., calling the sale price 'highly confidential.'

ATA's undisclosed offer was the best of several for the DC-10s aircraft, which would have been too costly for Northwest to keep, the company said Monday in a bankruptcy court filing.

A hearing on the ATA sale is scheduled for Dec. 14 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Objections to the deal must be filed by next Monday.

Northwest, the fourth-largest U.S. airline by passenger traffic, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last September.

Last month, Northwest ended its use of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 on trans-Atlantic routes and switched entirely to Airbus A330 aircraft. It said the wide-body jets, which can seat up to 298 passengers, have lower maintenance costs than the DC-10s and provide up to 30 percent in fuel savings.

Northwest has been selling off pieces of its fleet, which once included 24 DC-10-30s. The airline sold six planes to Omni Air International in July and two airframes to Charlotte Aircraft Corp. before it filed for bankruptcy last year.

The Eagan, Minn.-based airline said it wants to keep the details of the sale under wraps because it hopes to sell other DC-10 equipment.

'Revealing the terms of the sale to ATA will give potential purchasers of the remaining airframe and engines an unfair advantage in negotiating with the debtor,' Northwest said in court papers.

ATA emerged from bankruptcy protection in February.

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