This week has been a very busy one. Amidst new details that emerged about the low-cost operation we were bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Isabel.

First, let me update you on the low-cost operation. Wednesday's NewsReal article shed more light on the structure of the LCO. It will be launched out of the Denver hub in February of 2004 and will operate a fleet of Airbus A320s. Additional customer seats will replace the first class closet and the galley aft of door one, increasing the aircraft's capacity to 156.

This low-cost operation will be an essential element within United's suite of products. It will complement United's mainline and United Express service and will be fully integrated into their networks. LCO customers will enjoy seamless connections to United, United Express and Star Alliance flights. The company can provide distinct service in select leisure markets, supplementing our mainline flying. The LCO will add seats and frequencies in these markets, providing maximum value to our customers. Though aircraft utilization will be higher than mainline domestic, ground time will be longer and more reasonable than 20 minutes, which was allocated for "Shuttle by United" aircraft.

At this point, much remains undetermined about how flight attendant schedules will be constructed for the LCO. The scheduling team is in the process of analyzing the schedule to determine whether or not there will be separate lines of flying or IDs. This analysis will be completed closer to the actual launch date when the most accurate aircraft schedule is available. We anticipate that LCO flying will be treated much the same as other domestic flying, similar to Shuttle By United flying.

Since LCO flying will be part of the domestic DSL and operation, there will not be a separate reserve pool. The current collective bargaining agreement will govern the LCO operation so ID's will be constructed with the same legalities, rest requirements and duty rigs as all other domestic IDs. Just as today, flying will be assigned to domiciles where it can be done most economically.

This is exciting news for all of us. By launching the low-cost operation, we are strengthening United's ability to provide a consistently superior, seamless travel experience in virtually every major market of the globe. I'll continue to share the latest details when they are available.

While I'm on the subject of schedules, I know that schedule flexibility is a very important to you. When possible, many of you utilize ANP and trip trades to improve your quality of life. Our scheduling team recognizes this and continually looks for ways increase these opportunities.

Recent transfer activity is one example of this commitment. Typically, scheduling uses transfers as a way to balance flying among the domiciles. Domicile populations routinely fluctuate to some degree because of attrition. We anticipated having to use the transfer process to make significant adjustments to our domicile populations after the recent voluntary furlough rebid. For the most part, domicile populations remained stable after this activity, and fine- tuning the population was all that was necessary.

However, recognizing that many flight attendants had been waiting for transfer opportunities for quite some time, we awarded transfers to select domiciles. This transfer activity will continue at varying levels to those locations.

You'll be pleased to hear that you can also expect increased availability of ANP whenever possible. When the operation is performing well, which means that the demand on the reserve population is not as great, we can offer more ANP. This benefits all of us. The increased schedule flexibility hopefully contributes to your job satisfaction, and more importantly, your quality of life. And more cost-effective reserve utilization contributes to the company's bottom-line.

Before I close, I want to thank everyone for working so hard under the threat of Hurricane Isabel. Despite flight cancellations, we ran a great operation. Thanks to the accuracy with which our meteorologists predicted the path of the storm, we were able to plan our strategy and take appropriate actions. But I think it really speaks to employee commitment that during the height of the storm, 90% of our employees came to work. I'm also happy to report that no one sustained any injuries. I hope you and your loved ones were untouched by Hurricane Isabel's furry. Thank you for making this a great week.