Profile: W Paul Zampol

Aviation

Biography: Aviation

Paul Zampol is senior counsel with the air transport industry group of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP.

Before joining the firm, Mr Zampol was assistant general counsel with Delta Air Lines. His responsibilities during his 26-year tenure with Delta included all legal aspects of the company's aircraft transactions, including acquisition, sale, leasing and financing, technical contracts (including aircraft and engine maintenance contracts), operations services agreements, and training contracts. Mr Zampol's representative matters include restructuring and contingency planning in connection with the restructuring in bankruptcy of Delta Air Lines and Comair, with a focus on section 1110 planning; working on many of Delta's aircraft leases and on its EETC financing of over 150 aircraft from (2000 to 2003); acting as lead lawyer on the aircraft aspects of Delta's acquisitions of Western Air Lines, Atlantic Southeast Airlines and Comair, and in the subsequent sale of ASA; and negotiating and documenting major purchase agreements with airframe and engine manufacturers and negotiating and drafting fleet sale agreements, including Delta's disposition of its fleet of 119 Boeing 727 aircraft.

Mr Zampol's Delta experience also included extensive work in creditor's rights law, US DoT and FAA regulatory law, environmental law and intellectual property law.

Mr Zampol received his BS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, and his JD, cum laude, from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1977. Prior to joining Delta, Mr Zampol was a trial attorney with the US Civil Aeronautics Board.