Business & Finance: Rates Down

By cutting out free meals, Western Air Lines cut plane fares 5% last week. Other lines planned more drastic rate reductions. Northeast Airlines hopes soon to sell all unreserved and “no-show” seats at ⅓ discount. Pan American Airways, which had cut fares 44% with its coach service to Puerto Rico, will introduce a similar service to Buenos Aires in a month. Pan Am’s coach passengers will travel 52 to a DC-4 (as against the first class 30), and get only simple meals. But they will pay $169.50 less than the present New York-Buenos Aires round-trip fare of $1,053.