UAL Is Expected to Boost Daily Flights at LAX by 16%

The nation’s largest carrier is expected to unveil a major increase in daily flights serving Los Angeles International Airport starting later this year, The Times has learned.

Separately, UAL said its second-quarter profit would trail Wall Street’s forecasts as fare sales and computer problems led to weaker-than-expected U.S. passenger traffic in May.

United will add about 30 LAX flights, a 16% expansion of its airport activity, as part of a plan that could be announced as early as today, according to sources familiar with the project. The new flights would include more intra-California service by the airline’s low-fare Shuttle by United, which mainly competes with Southwest Airlines.

United, the main unit of UAL Corp. of Elk Grove Township, Ill., declined to comment. But sources said the expansion is part of United’s recent decision to make Los Angeles--where United already has the biggest market share--into one of its “hub” cities.

That effort also included a just completed $260-million renovation of its LAX terminal.

The extra flights also would help defend United in California against its archrival, AMR Corp.’s American Airlines, which recently announced plans to build up its modest West Coast service, sources said.

UAL on Friday said United’s “restrictive” response to “broad-based sale fares from low-cost competitors” cut into its passenger traffic last month and that it had problems switching to a new corporate computer system.

As a result, UAL said it now expects to earn between $2.40 and $2.80 per fully distributed share for the second quarter. That’s below the $3.05 a share that analysts had expected, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research Inc.

Because UAL is 55% owned by employees, it prefers to report results on a fully distributed basis, meaning it assumes that all shares allocated to its workers through next year already are distributed.