Business News brief

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Airline sees slight upturn

United Airlines said on Tuesday that it’s seeing early signs of a recovery in business travel as it reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss.
The recession has hurt business travel at all the big airlines, and United and other carriers have used discounts to fill seats. So while airlines would welcome the return of the business traveler, what they really want is the return of that traveler’s willingness to pay top dollar to fly around the world.
Even though United traffic fell only 2.9 percent during the quarter, revenue dropped by 20.3 percent to $4.43 billion.
As one of the two big U.S. carriers to Asia, United’s route network is skewed toward business travel.
Drug firm expansion likely
The Missouri Development Finance Board has voted unanimously to approve $3 million in bonds for a possible Express Scripts expansion in suburban St. Louis.
The nation’s largest pharmacy benefits manager, Express Scripts, is deciding whether to build a new $60 million drug distribution center in Missouri or in Bucks County, outside of Philadelphia.
Applicants for the incentives need to invest $15 million in capital improvements and create at least 100 new jobs in three years.
Wind generation lags
Armed with nearly $1 billion in federal grants, wind farm developers installed more capacity and got projects off the drawing board in the third quarter. Yet turbine manufacturers struggled amid excess supply, a trade group reported Tuesday.
The 1,649 megawatts of capacity installed from July through September — enough to serve the equivalent of 480,000 average households — was about 18 percent more than the year-ago quarter, the American Wind Energy Association said.
EU to reduce stimulus
European Union governments vowed to start withdrawing hundreds of billions of euros worth of stimulus measures by 2011 if the economy recovers steadily next year.
EU finance ministers said in a statement that the recovery “remains fragile and it is not yet time” to remove support to the economy — such as tax breaks, extra public spending on infrastructure and financial sector aid, including bank recapitalization and asset guarantees.
The European Commission will publish new economic growth forecasts on Nov. 3.