The Milwaukee Business Journal reported that Midwest Airlines is being sued for lease payments on two jets and their engines.  Wells Fargo, Inc. is asking for some $82,000 in overdue plane lease payments and Polaris Holding Company, Inc., a GE Capital subsidiary, is asking for $14,000 in lease payments for engines. 

The interesting part of this is that with dollar amounts so low, these two rather large companies felt they had to sue for their money.  Midwest Airlines is backed by TPG, Texas Pacific Group, and other large minority shareholders.   The backers of Midwest Airlines aren’t exactly cash short, even in these economic times.  It makes me think that those two lessors identified something scary in Midwest and decided to get their claims in first.   It is possible that both lessors (financial giants in the credit and leasing industry) are just trying to raise as much cash as possible too.  It still seems suspicious though.

Midwest Airlines remains on my death watch and their prolonged viability is mostly due to vastly reduced fuel prices.

Filed under: Airline News, Death Watch by ajax