Good morning, this is Glenn, and I'm calling from Chicago after another week of meetings with employees and government officials, chamber of commerce colleagues and editorial boards. This week we met with employees in Chicago and then in Denver.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had the opportunity to speak to -- and to hear from -- well over 2,000 employees. But I know that this is only a small fraction of our total employee population, so I wanted to share with you today some of the key issues that we talked about and some of the concerns that I have heard from you.

As I have said in every meeting, the most critical factor for the success of United, is that we all be on the same page and that that page be a very good page. That means there must be alignment and agreement within United about the future of our company, and as we've said in the meetings that without that alignment, we have virtually no chance of gaining the confidence of the capital markets and getting the money we'll need to exit bankruptcy successfully.

To work toward that alignment to help us all understand the serious issues and the opportunities we face, we spend most of our time talking about the plan for our company within the state of the airline industry. The problems facing this industry have evolved over time and are deeply rooted in many fundamental issues. For this industry to restructure in a way that will address those issues and establish a strong base business will involve substantial change across the industry.

Costs in virtually every form including wages and productivity are clearly one of the fundamental industry issues that some airlines are managing better than others. Those airlines with lower costs and more flexible work rules have already established a base from which to compete in this very tough marketplace.

It is a harsh -- but I think genuine -- reality that those without that solid cost and productivity platform cannot ultimately succeed.

So, our biggest challenge at United is getting our costs and our productivity to a place that will establish that strong base that we talked about during our meetings, to be competitive certainly with mainline carriers and ultimately with low-cost carriers and any other hybrid carrier that comes our way.

I know and I heard that this requires significant change for all of us at United, and I listened to personal examples from many of you of how difficult it may be. I know that the future we are facing is nothing like the one that you had all expected a couple of years ago. But I also hear from many of you, openly in the meetings and then again privately after the meetings, that as difficult as this is, you're personally prepared to move forward, but you want the durable and sustainable and competitive company that we talk about for hours on end. And in return for your personal commitment, you don't ever want to go through this again, and of course, you are absolutely right.

And that's why we have refused to offer up a quick-fix plan that would be easier to sell to our employees and other representatives, but would have virtually no chance of putting this company on a truly firm footing for the longer term.

In our view, there isn't any expedient or incremental way to fix this company and make it viable for the longer term. We talked throughout the meetings about taking our current situation as an opportunity for United to fix the base business, be more of a viable competitor in the marketplace with our peers and emerge a strong, viable competitive company.

We talked about the significant constituents we have to get on that very good page aligned behind the plan. We agreed that we start with our employees -- our employees first and then our customers. And we know we have to get our creditors' committee and those we need to finance our exit from Chapter 11 on that very good page as well.

Every day we make progress. We are engaged in conversations with all of the groups, including importantly our employee union representatives.

As I've said repeatedly in the meetings, these conversations are in very different stages, and that is to be expected. As a matter of fact, everything that we are experiencing today is what one should expect when you are in Chapter 11.

Chapter 11 includes being in a fishbowl, and it will increasingly include speculation and significant misinformation in the press. It's important to understand that those who have an agenda, sometimes a personal agenda of their own about our future will feed, as best they can, information to distract us. That always happens, and we need to be prepared for it. The very best defense, and ultimately an offense, against those who would have us distracted is to continue to focus on running the best airline we can, continuing to focus on our customers and our mutual respect for one another.

What I will continue to do is to ensure that you're all given as much information as possible, have as much access to me and the management team as possible, so that we can have the excellent discussions that we have had over the past two weeks, and so that we can all have a good understanding of what we are trying to accomplish for United.

In the days and weeks ahead, celebrate the performance that you generated in 2002, being No. 1 in reliability in the industry, against all odds. Celebrate the fact that that performance continued in January, and continue to focus on our future and all of us getting on that same good page of change.

I'll be talking with you again soon, be united, keep your heads up.