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 dark blue captain’s hat, with its golden oak-leaf clusters, sits atop a bookcase in Bryan Lawlor’s home, out of reach of the children. The uniform their father wears still displays the four stripes of a commercial airline captain, but the hat stays home. The rules forbid that extra display of authority, now that Mr. Lawlor has been downgraded to first officer.

An airline consulting firm says U.S. air traffic will decline through next year before beginning a slow rebound.

Discount airlines have traditionally outflanked the big network carriers in customer service and low fares, and it appears they're extending their advantage to social media.

Airlines shouldn't be too cheap when it comes to helping customers whose bags are lost.

Lengthy airline delays are twice as common now as in 1990 and will get worse as the economy recovers, according to a Brookings Institution report released Thursday.

The carriers offered fewer flights this summer than last, and they slashed prices to fill even that reduced supply of seats, according to August traffic reports released over the past week.

Airline passengers got to their destination on time a little more often in July. The Transportation Department said on Tuesday that 77.6 percent of airline flights arrived on time, up from 75.7 percent during the same month last year.

An industry trade group for U.S. Airlines forecast Monday that travel over the typically busy Labor Day holiday period will fall 3.5 percent this year compared with the same period in 2008.

The government is imposing fines for the first time against airlines for stranding passengers on an airport tarmac, the Transportation Department said Tuesday.

A late rally pushed stocks higher Tuesday following better-than-expected earnings from several Dow components. The Dow logged its seventh-straight gain, the Nasdaq, it's tenth.

The Dow advanced Tuesday as a slew of components beat earnings expectations. But there were pockets of weakness throughout the market, including chips, hardware, banks and retail. The Nasdaq was lower.

The Dow bolted out of the gate Tuesday as a slew of components beat earnings expectations. But there were pockets of weakness throughout the market, including chips, hardware, banks and retail. The Nasdaq was lower.

Futures indicated a slightly lower open for Wall Street Tuesday ahead of a slew of earnings and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's Capitol Hill testimony.

Continental Airlines Inc. said on Monday that it has installed DirecTV on 15 planes in its domestic fleet.