Chip, predictably and as always everything you think you know about UAL is wrong. You do a credable job of regurgetating the news, but when you attempt to interperate spotty news facts your opinions become misguided. I like so many find your pontification and self importance really boring. Consider the fact that NONE of your previous predictions regarding UAL and US Airways have ever come to furition. You are simply not as informed and enlightened as you would like people to believe. Your contempories and collegues at US Airways have told me this time and again. Simply put you have very little credability with your fellow employees. Please concentrate your efforts on solving your own companies problems. UAL is on track, lots of work to do, but on track. I know for a fact UAL has a POR, has numerous options for exit financing, some details of which should be released in the next few days.
For those that might be interested Glen Tiltons latest communication.
May 26, 2003
Hello. This is Glenn, and it's Monday, the Memorial Day holiday.
As you probably saw in Friday's NewsReal, I spent the first part of this week, or last week, visiting with employees, airport officials, top customers, corporate accounts, travel agencies and Star Alliance CEOs.
It was a very productive trip that included stops in the U.K., France and Germany. The purpose of the trip -- and I was accompanied by our new Senior Vice President-Worldwide Sales Graham Atkinson and Judy Bishop, the Atlantic regional vice president -- was to share positive developments at United and to convey an updated message to the marketplace, in this instance the European marketplace.
That message is, very simply, that we are focused on customers and on revenue, operational excellence -- or the continuation of our operational excellence -- and financial restructuring.
While I was there, I also had the opportunity to tell each audience that we are well ahead of where we expected to be a short while ago. As I have said to you before, we have made significant progress toward successfully exiting bankruptcy by cutting costs, improving productivity and reshaping our fleet.
In light of this progress, I communicated to our customers and our partners the same message that I'm sure that all of you saw from Jake in Wednesday's NewsReal. That being that although the company has a great deal of work to do before emerging from Chapter 11, our progress to date puts us in a position to make choices to the benefit of the company, to weigh the pros and cons of exit timing alternatives.
We don't see any impediment to an exit from Chapter 11 earlier than the 18 months that we initially forecast, but it is essential that we make the right choices. With that in mind, we are discussing timing options with our lenders, the creditors committee, the board of directors and others who have an interest in providing United exit financing.
In the meantime, we will continue our focus on rigorous cost containment and reducing the company's debt, accelerating consumer-facing and revenue-enhancement initiatives, working closely with financial partners to restructure the company's operations and the company's balance sheet.
Since we met with different and varied audiences in Europe, we also had specific discussions with each about a number of items. We had lively, engaging and productive meetings with employees both downtown and in the airports of all three cities. And there was, as there always is, a huge appetite for information. So my update to them was timely.
A top priority on this particular trip was explaining to top customers and travel agencies the steps that United is taking to deliver the experience travelers expect while offering real value for their money.
Customers are not so concerned about United's problems. They are very concerned about the products and the services and the value that we offer them. In one clear takeaway from our meetings with them, in fact with virtually every audience, was that they are anxious for United to move on, and to complete our restructuring and restore the operation to the business that they remember.
The consumer marketing programs we are undertaking in the coming weeks and the investment we've already started making resonated very well with all of them.
We also had good meetings with airport officials at Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt where there currently are huge infrastructure projects underway. We restated to the airport authorities our determination and commitment to ensure that United is appropriately involved in these projects and that the airports support our customer focus with improved facilities for United and Star Alliance.
Finally, I had meetings with Sir Michael Bishop of bmi, Jurgen Weber of Lufthansa and Jaan Albrecht of the Star Alliance. We had very productive discussions about how to improve United's strategic marketing relationships across the Star Alliance.
In all of these meetings, we took the opportunity to provide more detail about our new Worldwide Sales and Airport Operations organizations, and to provide insight as to why this structure will make United more globally effective, agile and responsive to our customers and the marketplace.
As I mentioned at the outset, I introduced Graham Atkinson in his new role. His appointment was very well received by employees in the UK, Paris and Frankfurt and by the alliance members as well. And, as a matter of fact, Graham is going to play a very key role as the chairman of the working group in the Star Alliance.
A few last thoughts from the trip: we received a significant amount of constructive feedback on what's good and where we need to improve at United. As I mentioned a moment ago, our customers are anxious for us to move on. They want to see action from the company, and they want our actions to be consistent with our words and for our words to accurately reflect our intentions.
We all know that much work remains to be done, and I can't emphasize that enough. This is a hard slog and we are taking it a day at a time, but we are clearly on the right path.
We'll continue to focus on improving our financial situation and we are weighing our exit timing options.
In the meantime, as I've said repeatedly, all of us need to continue to put our focus and energy on our customers and our continuing excellence in operations. That is what we need to do to differentiate United from our competitors.
I'll be talking to you again soon, as events develop. And, until next time, keep your heads up and be united.
28 PM 737nCH11 wrote: 
