AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines, said it would return up to 30 Boeing 717s that had been part of the TWA fleet. AMR bought Trans World Airlines last year and is folding it into American. Seventeen of the TWA jets already have been idled, and AMR chief financial officer Thomas Horton said this week that the remaining 13 would also be mothballed. American doesn’t fly the 717, and said it made no sense to keep the planes when it had similar 100-seat aircraft already in use.
Construction of new homes and apartments fell slightly in December but managed a solid 2.2 percent increase for all of last year, an amazing achievement considering that housing is usually one of the industries that is hardest hit during a recession. Meanwhile, other reports Thursday showed that new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level since July, and a closely watched gauge of regional manufacturing activity put out by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia posted its first increase in more than a year. Analysts said the new data provided hope that the country’s first recession in a decade appears to be nearing an end.
Despite strong demand for its mainframe computers and Unix-based servers, IBM posted its second consecutive quarterly decline in earnings Thursday as buyers, nervous about the economy, delayed spending on high technology. IBM’s net earnings fell 12 percent to $2.33 billion from $2.67 billion in the same period a year ago. Per-share earnings were $1.33, a penny better than the consensus estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial/First Call. IBM earned $1.48 a share in the same period a year ago. Revenues fell 11 percent to $22.83 billion, compared to $25.62 billion in the same period a year ago.
German economic growth slumped to an eight-year low in 2001, officials said Thursday. Last year’s 0.6 percent growth came in lower than government forecasts, underscoring the challenge faced by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as he runs for re-election in a Sept. 22 national vote. Federal statistics officials hinted strongly that Europe’s biggest economy shrank for a second consecutive quarter in the final months of 2001. Two quarters of falling output in a row is a common definition of recession. The government had estimated gross domestic product growth last year at 0.75 percent, and has predicted 1.25 percent growth this year – both far below the robust 3 percent expansion in 2000.
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