Hello, this is Jane Allen with an update for Friday, August 22, 2003.

The Employee Survey is on my mind this week, as I have been reviewing the results for our division and the company as a whole. The survey, which was distributed to a random sample of 15,000 employees companywide in June, is one of the tools you have for telling me what's on your minds. We have just posted Onboard's results on our division web site on SkyNet, and I encourage you to take a look at them.

What you'll see, briefly, is how flight attendants, salaried employees, non-supervisory management and the supervisor/manager group feel about the seven drivers of employee engagement. "Employee engagement" may sound like corporate-speak, but it isn't. The extent to which employees are engaged in their daily work contributes to their quality of work life and has tremendous impact on our operational performance, safety and customer satisfaction. That's why United has made employee engagement one of its core objectives.

Among the drivers of engagement are teamwork, recognition and having the tools and information you need to do your job. Engagement also is affected by your confidence in senior leadership and how well you understand the company's direction and your role in its success. The effectiveness of your supervisor and your ability to develop job skills and take advantage of opportunities to advance also play a role in engagement.

So how is Onboard Service doing in terms of engaging its employees? Our flight attendant's overall engagement score is 40 percent. That means that flight attendants who took the survey responded positively an average of 40 percent of the time to the questions about engagement. That compares to a companywide engagement score of 44 percent. The engagement numbers for salaried and management employees are not available specifically for our division, but we do have the companywide numbers. Those results show that salaried employee engagement is 56 percent, non-supervisory management is 55 percent and engagement among supervisors and managers is 60 percent. All of these results tell me that we have plenty of room for improvement with engagement of our team members.

Looking deeper into the survey provides more details about how employees feel about various aspects of engagement.

• Our flight attendants' highest results - the most positive responses -- were on questions about teamwork and understanding our company's direction and their role in its success. In fact, those results were higher than the company as a whole. Flight attendants' lowest results were on questions about recognition, confidence in senior leadership and the effectiveness of their supervisors. In fact, these results were well below the company as a whole.
  
• For salaried and management employees, the highest results were related to teamwork and understanding our company's direction and their role in its success. For the most part, all of the salaried and management employees' results were higher than our flight attendants and higher than the company as a whole. The lowest results for salaried and management employees were about job skills, opportunities to grow and recognition.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the survey. Our job now in Onboard Service and across the company is to develop an action plan, based on what we've learned from you. As I mentioned earlier, engaging you in your daily work is key to United's success. That's why a team of representatives from Onboard - including management and salaried employees and flight attendants -- will be looking at how to address the issues you identified. We'll communicate more on that subject in the coming weeks.

Speaking of employee engagement, LHRSW Manager Ron Napier recently saw it in action. On Aug. 10, Flight 921 from London to Washington Dulles suffered a mechanical delay that was expected to last 15 minutes, but stretched to four hours. When it was determined that the flight had to be recatered because of the galley food temperature, our flight attendants sprang into action in the gate area. LHR-based Paul Sampson and IAD-based Qualified Purser Patsy Johnson removed two United Economy carts from the aircraft. Volunteers Karolin Andre, Marlene Van der Hout and Shawndra Weed, all LHRSW, joined the effort to serve snacks and soft drinks in the crowded gateroom. Our passengers appreciated this unexpected attention, and employees in LHRCS, OO and MM were grateful for the support. The crew was instrumental in minimizing customer discomfort and inconvenience. That was confirmed by the excellent reaction from customers as they reboarded the flight. Thanks to this crew for going above and beyond their job description. That's engagement

A note for next week: I'm pleased to announce that we're finalizing the details of the transfer plan. Watch "Front Page News" for more information on Tuesday about what to expect from the transfer process.

Yesterday, I appreciated the hospitality of our team in EWR and today I enjoyed a great visit at JFK. Thanks to all of you who took the time to meet with me. Looking to the week ahead, I'll be visiting our Boston domicile on Tuesday and Miami on Wednesday. I hope to see many of you there. As always, thanks for listening. Whether you are working, or on your days off, have a safe and enjoyable weekend.