Hello, this is Jane Allen with a belated update for the week ending November 8, 2003.
As I told you after my arrival at United, one of my objectives has been to get out in the field to meet face-to-face with as many Onboard employees as possible. My Update is a little late because I was in transit after visiting our domiciles in Honolulu, Narita and Hong Kong last week. I want to thank my hosts at each location for their warm welcome and hospitality. I appreciated the opportunity to meet and talk with many employees -- both at group meetings and one-on-one as I walked through various facilities, including the Narita Flight Kitchen. I've now been to every domicile across the system. My visits have given me a wider perspective on the work all of you do every day, your commitment to serving customers and your desire to help United succeed. I also have a greater understanding of the issues on your minds, and the operational issues the people of our division are facing. I firmly believe in the value of face-to-face communication, so this won't be the last of my visits to the field. I hope to meet many more of you in the coming months.

In recent messages I've talked about Onboard Service's new mission statement and the fundamental behaviors our leadership team have identified to help all of us contribute to United's future success. This week, I'd like to share our division's business plan -- both our long-term and short-term goals.

Onboard's long-term objectives are aligned with the corporate objectives and Glenn Tilton's vision for United. That's essential because the company's future success depends on the combined efforts of all employees, and we all need to be on the same page going forward. Our division is focusing on six key areas. They include Safety, Customer Service/Product, People, Technology, Profitability and Reliability. I'll address each of those objectives and provide some examples of the initiatives we're planning in 2004 to achieve them.

Our long-term Safety objective is to be recognized as the Onboard safety leader by our colleagues, our union, our customers, our industry peers and the Federal Aviation Administration. One of the safety initiatives we'll launch next year is a flight attendant self-reporting program, similar to the Flight Safety Awareness program already in place for our pilots. This initiative will encourage a culture of self-reporting of safety issues in a collaborative, problem-solving environment. United will be the first airline to offer this type of program to flight attendants.

Our long-term Customer Service objective is to be recognized as the leader in customer service among U.S. carriers. Achieving this goal will give us a great platform to move forward towards the ultimate goal of being the leader in customer service worldwide. We will measure our success in this area using MarketTrak as well as using external surveys like GAP, for comparisons to carriers flying international routes, and Traveltrak, for carriers flying domestic routes. One of our Customer Service initiatives for 2004 is to review all of our service levels, methods and standards, for all classes of service and to make changes to refresh our service where needed. We must make sure our service standards are in sync with the marketplace, as well as nurture a service culture that meets or exceeds our customers' expectations.

In the area of Onboard Product, our goal is to be an industry leader in delivering innovative, creative and excellent quality food and beverage, with good variety, appropriate to the marketplace. An excellent example of how we will accomplish that is our Buy On Board initiative, which we recently began testing on 200 daily flights. This new product features high-quality meals and allows us to offer our United Economy customers more variety, as well as make food available on flights where we currently do not offer a meal service. Another bonus of Buy On Board is that the financial risks shift to the vendors participating in this initiative.

Our long-term People objective is to increase employee engagement and success at all levels through training, development, recognition and targeted communication. Our record-breaking operational performance shows what we can accomplish when employees feel engaged in the process.

In the area of Technology, our long-term objective is to focus on technology advancement in the development of applications allowing users to make profitable, sustainable, flexible decisions that support United being the low cost provider of a full service network. We will be pursuing technological advancements that will improve productivity and efficiency, and that give us better information on which to make decisions. In 2004, among the projects we plan to complete, are system enhancements that will allow flight attendants the ability to bid on SkyNet.

Our objective in the area of Profitability is to focus on profitable, sustainable and flexible financial decisions contributing to United being the low cost provider of a full service network. Today's consumers are looking for the best product at the lowest price, and we have to meet that challenge.

The final area our division is focusing on is Reliability. Our long-term objective is to contribute to our company's success by meeting or exceeding our division's reliability goals. That applies not only to on-time performance, but also to employee dependability and to doing what it takes to get the job done. A new concept we're developing for 2004 is a "Flight Attendant Travel Ready" initiative, an effort that will identify what it takes to ensure that our flight attendants are ready to travel and to perform to the highest standards.

Like United's corporate objectives, our division business plan reflects a key fact of life for us: Going back to the way things were is not an option for our airline and it's not what we want to do. We've got the power to shape our future and our division business plan will help us help United thrive and endure.

I can't close without thanking each of you for your contribution to the Company's outstanding operational performance in October. Despite the impact of the California wildfires on our operation and on many of you personally, you helped United achieve an on-time zero departure performance of 77 percent for the month of October. That was 12 points better than the company's on-time zero goal. We also exceeded our goals for STAR departures, on-time: 14 arrivals, departure completion and controllable completion. Thank you for continuing to focus on providing exceptional service to our customers.

Well that's it for this update. Fly safely and have a great week.