Hi, it's Glenn and I am calling from Dulles. I'm on my way to Singapore for meetings of the IATA board of governors and the Star Alliance chief executive officers.

This morning, I testified before the Aviation Sub-Committee of the House of Representatives. Rep. John Mica, the chairman of the subcommittee, and ranking member Rep. Peter DeFazio called the hearing to receive testimony on the financial condition of the U.S. airline industry almost three years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with a focus on economic self-help initiatives by the carriers.

I was invited to join a panel of industry executives, including the chief executive officers from Continental, Northwest, AirTran, America West and Frontier. In the afternoon session, industry analysts and experts and the executive director of the ATSB added their testimony for the record.

During both the morning and the afternoon sessions, industry executives and experts talked about the difficult condition of the industry, the contribution of the ATSB to date and the rise of lower-cost carriers. The discussion among the airline chief executive officers dealt with three major challenges to the industry – rising fuel cost, security fees and taxes, and war risk insurance.

The members of the subcommittee voiced their concern about these issues. For example, some members suggested that they would support a three to five year extension of federal funding of war risk insurance.

But they also showed significant interest in what we're doing to fix our financial problems on our own. It was pointed out that three out of the six companies represented on the panel made a profit in the first quarter, while the others reported losses. As many as five of the six are expected to lose money for the full year 2004.

The other panelists and I discussed what we had done at our companies to reduce costs and to be competitive. I'd like to give you a quick summary of what I told the subcommittee. The text of the written testimony that I submitted on your behalf for the hearing is also posted on SkyNet. When you have a moment, I encourage you to read through it.

I turned to what I believe are the two most important issues facing airlines today c cost management and competitive flexibility – and what United is doing to confront those issues.

I stressed to the Congressmen that the new agreements United has in place with our employees not only included critical wage reduction, but also new work rule and scope changes that provide the flexibility and decision making that we need to optimize our product portfolio and to run a competitive business. I told them that at United we are now ready to compete. We need to deploy the right product in the right place to respond quickly and effectively to both market challenges and to market opportunities.

I also listed the hundreds of millions of dollars in savings contributed by our business partners.

I told them how we are rethinking everything we do at the company – to be better, more efficient and more cost effective. I used this as an example of United's commitment to continuous, ongoing improvement in operational performance and in our cost structure – and in the way we do business and our commitment to the customer.

My message was that to be successful, every airline in our industry must apply to their business the discipline and rigor that we've learned through the restructuring process. For our part at United, we have built a solid platform – a foundation for change that will allow us to meet the challenges this industry faces in the future.

This week and over the next several weeks, we will be inaugurating an array of new flights. And we're going to be reinstating others. Today we launched new daily flights from Dulles to Zurich, and soon we're going to be inaugurating new flights from Chicago to Osaka and from Honolulu to Narita, as well as a second daily flight from Tokyo to Honolulu. We're launching our daily non-stop service between San Francisco and Beijing, along with non-stop service from Chicago to Honolulu and transcontinental flights from Dulles to Sacramento. Ted is soon going to be flying from Chicago to Las Vegas, and we will be offering United Express flights from Denver to Cody, Wyoming, in response to demand for vacation travel to Yellowstone.

As I said, this afternoon I'm flying to Singapore, and I'll be back in Chicago on Tuesday. And upon my return, I'll get back on the phone and tape another call giving you an update on the meetings that I'll be having in Singapore with my colleagues. Until then, stay focused, keep up the great work and remain United.