United Airlines loss to be larger than predicte

UAL Corp, the parent company of No 1 carrier United Airlines, said it expects to report an even larger first-quarter loss than current Wall Street estimates, and that for the full year it sees performance below plan levels. It cited the softening U.S. economy for results that it said will be "well below" a $2.82 loss per share, which is the current consensus average of analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.

UAL said many factors precluded it from giving a specific estimate. "The softening of the U.S. economy has had an industry-wide effect on business travel demand," said Chairman James Goodwin. "As a result, we've experienced a decrease in our higher-yielding close-in bookings.