Source: Xinhua Author: 06/02/2009
Subject Concerned: Aircraft Airport
On June 2, General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker which filed for bankruptcy protection on June 1, sought to cancel seven aircraft leases and its lease with Wayne County on a hangar at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, as it rejects contracts in bankruptcy court.
According to a report by The Detroit News, GM came under sharp scrutiny when its then Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner flew in a company plane to hearings in Washington in November to seek emergency government loans.
The automaker said last year that it would reduce its fleet from seven to three planes, and then vowed in December to sell all of its planes.
GM also wants to cancel its lease on a hangar and other space at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The bankrupt automaker's 25-year lease on its hangar was signed in 1984. The lease includes 230,000 square feet of paved ramp space and 112,000 of space for parking and equipment storage.
GM pays about US$41,000 a month in rent to the Metro airport authority, a lease that was supposed to expire in November this year. As part of its lease, GM spent US$3 million in the mid-1980s to improve the hangar.