United Airlines’ 6,500 pilots were notified yesterday that the airline intends to furlough about 950 of them by the end of 2009 as a result of plans to reduce the fleet by 100 aircraft to cope with surging oil prices, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Keith Rimer, the airline’s system chief pilot, said that because of the number of pilots on military and personal leaves, furlough notices will be sent to more than 1,400 of the airline’s least-senior pilots in order to cut the active roster by 950. The Air Line Pilots Association union is working with the company on ways to mitigate the number of involuntary furloughs.

Regional banks across the nation are being shaken to the core by the current credit crisis as home mortgages and other loans that the banks made in good times are souring so fast that many of the lenders are scrambling to remain in business, the New York Times reported today. If the pain worsens - and many analysts say it will - some of these banks may eventually seek out suitors, most likely large national rivals. “Everybody is trying to figure out where the bottom is,” said Jennifer Thompson, a regional bank analyst for Portales Partners in New York. The regional banks’ descent in the stock market has been remorseless, as weakening housing and construction markets in regions like the Midwest, Southeast and Southwest have hit lenders in those areas hard. While small and midsize lenders are in far less danger than they were during the 1980s and early 1990s, the breadth and depth of the current troubles have caught bank executives by surprise. Federal regulators are particularly concerned about the exposure of smaller banks to the commercial real estate market, which has softened in some parts of the country.

With the economy struggling, analysts say that some corporations are starting to tap so-called revolving lines of credit and other forms of backstop financing that could lead to banks being forcing them to raise money to cover the loans, the New York Times reported today. Collectively, banks have pledged to lend companies more than $1 trillion. And because most of those loans have not been made yet, and many perhaps never will be, the banks have not accounted for them on their balance sheets. Some companies, such as Univision, Porsche, CIT Group and Sprint Nextel, have already tapped lines of credit in recent months. A growing number of companies might soon follow suit, analysts say.

Tammy Andreycak, the former director of accounting for collapsed bottler Le-Nature Inc. pled guilty Thursday to bank and wire fraud, conspiracy and aiding in the preparation of false income tax returns in connection with an alleged massive scheme of deception, Bankruptcy Law360 reported on Friday. Prosecutors said that Andreycak allegedly created false accounting records at the direction of Le-Nature’s CEO Gregory J. Podlucky, who has not been charged. Andreycak and Podlucky allegedly had a computer only accessible to them to generate periodic general ledgers that became the basis for the company’s balance sheets and income statements, all of which “grossly overstated” the gross receipts and assets of the company, court documents said.

The Bank of England and the British government are considering actions that would mirror steps taken by the U.S. Federal Reserve to restore liquidity to the money markets by taking over mortgage-backed assets from banks, the New York Times reported today. Details are still being decided for the plan, which would offer government-backed bonds in exchange for securities backed by British mortgages. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the Exchequer, have come under increasing pressure to act, as banks’ continued reluctance to lend adds to woes in the British housing and consumer markets. Banks are unwilling to lend even to each other because they do not trust the value of their mortgage-backed assets at a time of falling property prices in Britain.

 A month after suffering the biggest embarrassment in its 20-year history, the Carlyle Group closed late last week on a $1.35 billion fund to buy distressed assets, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The new fund, Carlyle Strategic Partners II, will do everything from investing in publicly traded bonds and bank loans to purchasing ailing companies outright. It is the first Carlyle vehicle to close since the collapse of Carlyle Capital Corp., a fund also managed by Carlyle Group.

Asarco LLC is seeking court approval to enter into a $5 million financing deal under its chapter 11 restructuring, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The copper-mining company said that it needs the financing because its $75 million bankruptcy loan expired in December, according to court documents filed Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Aloha Airlines said that it will halt all passenger service after today, signaling the end of an airline that has served Hawaii for more than 60 years, the Associated Press reported today. Aloha, which filed for bankruptcy for chapter 11 protection on March 20, was a casualty of fierce competition and rising fuel prices. The airline said it will stop taking reservations for flights after Monday. ”We simply ran out of time to find a qualified buyer or secure continued financing for our passenger business,” said Aloha President David Banmiller. Aloha said that tickets for flights after today will not be honored, and that it is working to have UAL Inc.’s United Airlines accommodate passengers with tickets for Aloha’s mainland to Hawaii flights and hopes to seat those with interisland tickets on Hawaiian Airlines Inc.

GMAC LLC named Alvaro G. de Molina to succeed Eric Feldstein to be its CEO effective April 1, the Wall Street Journal reported. De Molina had been chief financial officer at Bank of America until he was hired as GMAC’s chief operating officer in August. De Molina said that he believes the worst of the troubles with GMAC’s mortgage business are over and GMAC sees “realizable value” in it over the long-term. The business, called Residential Capital LLC, or ResCap, led the company into big losses due to mortgage defaults. While de Molina concedes there could be more losses related to the company’s exposure to subprime mortgages and other assets, he said “the idiosyncratic issues at ResCap are behind us.” GMAC is 51 percent controlled by private-equity concern Cerberus Capital Management LLP.

Bankrupt W.R. Grace & Co. has struck a deal with the U.S. government that would split the costs of cleaning up hazardous substances that contaminated a site near Baltimore, Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday. The government had wanted the specialty chemicals firm to pay $102 million for cleaning up W.R. Grace’s Curtis Bay site, where monazite sand was processed in the 1950s under a contract with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Without admitting any liability, W.R. Grace said the Army Corps will have an allowed administrative expense claim of $750,000 for all post-petition past costs. The United States has agreed to pay 60 percent of any other costs incurred during the performance of response actions to the site, and W.R. Grace will pay for 40 percent of the costs.