United Airlines raises fares
United Airlines has raised nearly all of its business fares by $5 each way, a move that is expected to be matched by major U.S. airlines.
The increase, made late Thursday, would be the ninth broad industry fare hike this year, further fueling optimism about the strength of air passenger traffic, analyst Jamie Baker at J.P. Morgan wrote in a report Friday.
United, a unit of UAL Corp., raised prices for all domestic first-class tickets, and for business customers who purchase tickets up to seven days before flying in the United States, said UAL spokeswoman Robin Urbanski. Fare hikes didn’t affect UAL’s TED unit, she said.
Other major airlines said Friday that they were considering whether to match in the increase.
On Monday, the Air Transport Association is expected to release July revenue data for the U.S. airline industry. Baker said he expects overall revenue per seat mile, or RASM, a standard industry measure, to increase 12 percent from a year ago.
Dallas
EchoStar suit raises TiVo stock
EchoStar Communications Corp. rushed to a federal appeals court Friday in a successful bid to avoid shutting down more than 3 million digital video recorders used by customers of its Dish satellite-TV service.
But the victory could be only temporary. EchoStar is fighting an uphill battle against TiVo Inc., which convinced a jury in April that EchoStar infringed on its patented TV-viewing technology in making set-top boxes for Dish customers.
Late Thursday, the federal district court judge who presided over the trial also sided with TiVo. He issued an injunction ordering EchoStar to stop selling the recorders and to turn off machines already in customers’ homes within 30 days.
Judge David Folsom also ordered EchoStar to pay TiVo $89.6 million in damages — more than the $74 million the jury awarded.
The ruling helped push TiVo shares up more than 8 percent Friday. Investors kept bidding the shares higher even after a federal appeals court in Washington temporarily blocked the order to disable EchoStar’s video recorders.