THE Jamaican Government has found a buyer for the only two aircraft owned by Air Jamaica that are being sold to pay taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States.

President of the airline Bruce Nobles told the Observer Wednesday that they had received "a letter of intent to sell the two aeroplanes", which have been on the market since last summer, at US$17 million each.

He, however, did not divulge the name of the potential buyer, only to say that the entity was based in the US and "buys and sells aeroplanes"."We are close to finalising the deal," he told the Observer, following a press conference at the airline's downtown Kingston headquarters to give an update on tomorrow's takeover of Air Jamaica's operations by Trinidad-owned Caribbean Airlines.

He said that he expected to have the planes off their hands "in the next couple days".

The Air Jamaica president said the proceeds from the sale of the two aeroplanes would go to the IRS, which is owed some US$30 million.

"That will clean up most of the amount," Nobles said.

Nobles said the sums had been wracked up over time as the airline had taken to using the taxes it collected from ticket sales -- on behalf of the US government -- "to make payroll and to buy fuel and so forth".

"We are in the process of paying that back. But they have been adding interest and penalties on top of that so we paid a lot back," he said.

Nobles, however, said he was not at liberty to say the final cost the planes were being sold for.

"I'm not able to say, we don't have a final deal yet; they don't want to read about it in the papers," he ended.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding, in a statement to Parliament in February, said the two aircraft owned by Air Jamaica would be sold to settle debts to the IRS.

"We owe a lot of money. We have had to use diplomatic channels to avoid our planes being seized for non-payment of fees owed to the Government of the United States. It is proposed to dispose of those two aircraft in order to discharge that obligation," the prime minister told the House.

The two aircraft were the only ones in the Air Jamaica fleet that are owned by the Government. Air Jamaica operated with a fleet of aircraft.