■Airlines
United decides to cut fares
United Airlines said Monday that it had cut unrestricted fares on direct flights out of Chicago and Denver and on thousands of connecting flights in smaller markets. The move by the airline, a unit of the UAL Corp, signaled a willingness to experiment with lower fares for business travelers. Many walk-up fares with no restrictions, typically paid by business travelers, have been cut 40 percent, with some as much as 60 percent. For example, the one-way walk-up fare between Chicago and New York is US$359, half of what it had cost. Industry experts said the move by United was the first widespread effort by a large network airline to simplify parts of its fare structure by bringing unrestricted fares closer to leisure fares. American Airlines, a unit of AMR, and Delta Air Lines have both experimented with their fare structures. But those experiments affected fares in only a handful of markets. By contrast, United said it was cutting fares in 12,500 markets.
■ Telecoms
AT&T to cut 3,500 jobs
AT&T Corp will slash 3,500 jobs and write down the value of its Latin American and high-speed Internet ventures, wiping US$1.54 billion from fourth-quarter pretax profit at the biggest US long-distance telephone company. The 4.9 percent workforce reduction will cost US$240 million, or US$0.20 a share, AT&T said in a statement. The job cuts are in addition to the 10,000 positions AT&T has eliminated in the past two years. AT&T and its long-distance rivals are paring expenses to compensate for a slump in demand for phone service from both consumers and corporations. CEO David Dorman may be housecleaning after replacing Michael Armstrong, who left the New York-based company when AT&T sold its cable-television unit to Comcast Corp. late last year, investors said. "Bringing down costs is the only thing they've got going for them until the economy turns around," said Paul Wright, an analyst at Loomis Sayles & Co.
■ Business travel
Spending may not change
After surveying 200 corporate travel managers, the National Business Travel Association predicts that spending on business travel will remain flat this year. That is a change from last March, when travel managers surveyed predicted a recovery of robust business travel within six months to a year. It sure is a long way in the skies from the notorious summer of 2000, when airline delays were the biggest news in aviation. Lately, with airlines putting more than 10 percent fewer seats in the air than they did a year earlier, the major airlines are getting the planes in and out fairly efficiently. According to the Transportation Department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the 10 largest carriers posted an 85.2 percent on-time arrival record in November -- better than both the 84.7 percent for November 2001 and the 84.2 percent for October 2002.
■ Tobacco
Philip Morris to cut prices
Philip Morris Cos, the world's largest cigarette maker, said it will cut prices on four of its brands by US$6.50 a carton as part of a two-month promotion. The price reduction on Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Parliament and Basic is effective Feb. 3 to March 30, Philip Morris spokesman Brendan McCormick said.
Agencies
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