Difficult to say without knowing which companies we're talking about, but here's how I read it: given that we're talking about the aviation industry in general, I understand "AA" to refer to "American Airlines" - whether AA itself will make that bid is uncertain without knowing the background. "Pre-emptive" could refer to an impending bankruptcy of the company in question (or, probably more likely, its parent - yes, I'm thinking UAL here...) that AA (or rather its holding company AMR Corp.) would use to aggressively pick out parts of a group. Equally probable, this could be the view of a competitor.

Enough guessing...