BERLIN — Greece might need a third international rescue package worth 50 billion euros ($66 billion) in 2015, the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday.
The troika of creditors — the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — is said to have expressed strong doubt in a preliminary report that Greece would be able to return to the international money markets to borrow in 2015.
By then, Athens is likely to require that third bailout to repay international loans. Der Spiegel claimed Germany requested that this part of the report be edited out.
AIRLINES
United-Continental merger yields weekend glitches
NEW YORK — Passengers on United Continental Holdings Inc. flights this weekend faced delays and long telephone wait times as United swallowed up Continental’s operations, but the company says more flights were on time Sunday than Saturday.
The company combined passenger-reservations data, including frequent-flier accounts, from the two airlines early Saturday.
United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy says a quarter of the company’s Saturday flights were delayed 30 minutes or more, but 99 percent of all flights were completed.
She says the company is also telling customers online that if they’re trying to reach the airline by phone and they’re not flying within 72 hours, they should call back later. Of domestic United flights Sunday, 83 percent were on time through the afternoon. The company says its on-time goal is 80 percent.
AEROSPACE
Airbus parent may seek to refuse German support
BERLIN — European aerospace giant EADS is examining if it can do without German support, amid increasing pressure from Berlin on the group to safeguard Germany’s interests, a Frankfurt newspaper reported Monday.
In February, Tom Enders, the group’s new chief executive, sparked anxiety in Berlin by announcing the group would be restructured, with management of the giant to be concentrated in the southern French city of Toulouse, as opposed to the current Paris-Munich-Toulouse split.
But Peter Hintze, Germany’s coordinator for the aerospace sector, called it “unacceptable” that German plants would not be expanded and called for a “reversal of the trend.”
To avoid such pressure from Berlin, EADS and its subsidiary Airbus are now looking at whether they can do without development support from the federal government, the Allgemine Zeitung reported, quoting sources close to the company.
From wire dispatches and staff reports
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