Welcome to FLT-LINE. This is Larry De Shon and thanks for dialing in. Today is Friday, November 8th.

Many of you have been asking if we’ll be furloughing flight attendants due to additional service reductions and station closings. As painful as it is, the answer is yes.

Our schedule reductions have resulted in a surplus of personnel throughout the company.  We’ve already announced furloughs within Customer Service, Maintenance and Reservations. Other departments are reviewing their manpower requirements for 2003 and beyond. I anticipate that those departments will announce staffing level adjustments in upcoming weeks.

Once we receive the 2003 scheduling data, we will announce the projected number of furloughs for flight attendants. At this point, we see an approximate need for 4,800 flight attendant furloughs effective January 31, 2003. We currently have 2,100 flight attendants on voluntary furlough. Therefore, we would need 2,700 additional flight attendant furloughs to bring the total to 4,800.

We are required, by the Contract, to offer voluntary furloughs before involuntarily furloughing flight attendants. The Company and the Association of Flight Attendants are currently discussing several voluntary furlough options to offset imposing involuntary furloughs and to minimize the affect on our flight attendants.

This announcement is extremely difficult to make and I regret the impact this will have on our employees and their families. Now, I need to ask for your patience over the next several days. I know you have many questions, and unfortunately, we won’t have any answers until next week. Please stay tuned, as detailed information is forthcoming.

Thank you for dialing into this week’s message and I look forward to talking to you again next week.