Objections raised against US Airways lease proposal = = Friday September 20, 3:37 PM EDT = By Julie MacIntosh NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) - A group of banks, aircraft leasing firms an= d trustees have voiced a resounding objection to US Airways Group's (UAWG= Q) request that a bankruptcy court let it reject leases on some of its ai= rplanes and abandon others to cut costs. Arlington, Virginia-based US Airways, which filed for Chapter 11 bankrupt= cy protection in August, already has permission to turn back leases on 67= airplanes and their engines to save hundreds of millions of dollars and = trim unneeded passenger capacity. US Airways asked the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virgini= a earlier this month to let it make further cuts to its costly airplane l= ease obligations. But the airline did not specify which leases out of a potential pool of 1= 50 could be affected, or when the moves could take place, omissions that = have irked its creditors. = If US Airways won permission to reject leases on the equipment, it could = whittle down its current fleet of about 280 large aircraft and save the e= mbattled carrier a chunk of cash. But the move would also cut jobs for pilots and flight attendants at the = airline, and leave creditors in the lurch, with little chance of passing = the abandoned planes off to other customers during the industry's deep do= wnturn. Cuts in capacity by the nation's major airlines have rendered hundreds of= airplanes useless. More than 550 aircraft sat parked in the deserts of t= he Western U.S. during August, just less than 10 percent of the entire av= ailable fleet, Lehman Brothers analyst Gary Chase estimated. The list of firms objecting to US Airways' request late this week include= d General Electric Co. (GE), which said in a court filing that it may be = "financially at risk as a guarantor" if US Airways fails to pay rent on i= ts leased planes or abandons other lease obligations. The manufacturing and services conglomerate, which also provides various = types of financing, said in the filing that it has a stake in transaction= s with US Airways involving 13 different Boeing 737-400 aircraft. An attorney for GE said she was not aware that any monetary value for GE'= s exposure to the leases had been determined. A spokesman for GE was not = available for further comment. Creditors also objected to the vagueness of US Airways' request, and said= the airline's motion made no mention of whether or when any specific air= craft would be returned. US Airways' restructuring agreement currently allows it to cut its fleet = size to 245 during its bankruptcy. A spokesman at US Airways could not be reached for comment. = =A92002 Reuters Limited. = Roger EWROPS