Philippine Airlines to delay or drop Airbus orders in rehab plan

Philippine Airlines will delay or cancel the delivery of over a dozen Airbus planes, company officials said on Monday, adding that the distressed flag carrier is looking to emerge from bankruptcy protection by year-end. The airline was supposed to receive 13 narrow-body aircraft from European manufacturer in the next five years, until the coronavirus pandemic hammered the aviation industry. "We were able to get the support of Airbus to basically postpone those deliveries and give us an option to cancel some of those aircraft beyond 2026 to 2030 ... depending on how this recovery shapes up," Nilo Thaddeus Rodriguez, the airline's CFO, said Monday. Philippine Airlines on Sept. 3 filed a "pre-arranged" Chapter 11 petition in the U.S. state of New York. The first hearing is set for this week, and the carrier aims to emerge from the bankruptcy process by the end of the year, airline president Gilbert Santa Maria said in the same briefing. "Once we exit before the end of the year, we're done. We will have a lighter balance sheet. We will have new capital, and our cost structure will be a lot lighter," Santa Maria said. "I don't anticipate anything other than, you know, an asteroid hitting Manhattan to stop us from exiting," the president said.<br/>