United, Continental Post Losses in Second Quarter : Airlines: They blame ticket price wars, weak traffic.

The parent companies of United Airlines and Continental Airlines reported second-quarter losses Thursday, blaming ticket price wars and weak traffic.

UAL Corp., the holding company for United, said the industry’s ticket discounting will hurt the company’s results through the year.

Fierce price cutting erupted on summer fares this year. The fare free-for-all provoked a stampede to ticket counters, but it also hurt carriers’ profits.

United, the second-largest U.S. airline, said it lost $95.1 million, or $3.94 a share, in the second quarter, contrasted with a profit of $52.7 million, or $2.23 a share, a year ago.

The loss was smaller than Wall Street had expected, and UAL’s stock climbed $3.625 to $114 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Chicago-based company reported revenue of $3.1 billion--about the same as last year.

“Our clearly unsatisfactory second-quarter results reflect the severe impact of revenue-diluting pricing activity in the U.S., as well as the effects of the recessionary environment throughout much of the world,” UAL Chairman Stephen Wolf said.

“Unless this situation is reversed, alternative actions to reduce our expenses will have to be considered,” he said.

Houston-based Continental Airlines Holdings Inc. said it lost $99.2 million in the quarter on revenue of $1.4 billion. Its Continental Airlines subsidiary’s losses were even higher--$116.6 million on revenue of $1.3 billion.

Continental has been operating under Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy protection since December, 1990. It has recently been negotiating a $350-million buyout offer from Maxxam Inc., a Houston investment group.

The parent company’s loss, equal to $2.09 a share, was a slight improvement over the year-ago period, when it lost $109.1 million, or $2.38 a share, on revenue of $1.4 billion.

“The improvement over the second quarter of 1991 was due largely to aggressive cost-control actions,” Chief Executive Robert Ferguson said.

For the first six months, Continental’s losses totaled $81.8 million, or $1.73 a share, contrasted with a loss of $290.4 million, or $6.48 a share, in the first half of 1991. Revenue in the six-month period was $2.8 billion, versus $2.7 billion a year ago.

So far this year, UAL has lost $187.4 million, or $7.81 a share, compared to last year’s first-half loss of $104.3 million, or $4.57 a share.

The airline flew more planes and incurred higher costs in fuel and labor.