Hi it's Glenn, and it's Tuesday the 18th of October. I am calling from San Francisco, and joining me on the call today from Chicago is Cindy Aldworth, our senior staff representative - Onboard Service. Cindy's on the call with us today to give us an update on United's progress with our Buy on Board customer meal program.

As United moves forward, we're focusing on our core business and delivering products and services to our customers that consistently meet or exceed their expectations. Our goal is to continuously do things better at the same time that we take costs out of the business.

We think that Buy on Board is a great example of a service initiative that reduces our costs while improving the travel experience for customers. And, in fact, it has become a source of revenue for the company.

As I said on my last call, it's vital that we balance the interests of customers, employees and investors in everything we do at United and in every decision that we make. Cindy"s report on Buy on Board is an excellent example of a project that achieves this balance for United.

So Cindy, I'll turn the call over to you…

CINDY

Thanks, Glenn.

Buy On Board – better known to all of us in Onboard as BOB – was started back in October of 2003.

The initial goal was to reduce costs – BOB was a lower-cost alternative to free meals, many of which were being removed – while also providing a quality food option for our customers.

Today it is an industry trend to offer food for purchase during flights, but when we introduced BOB at United, back in 2003, it was one of the very first programs of its kind.

Probably one of the biggest challenges to me was to obtain buy-in from the many people we needed to make it a success.

Change is always hard, and BOB was introduced when there were already a lot of changes being made. I have to admit that when some people heard about the concept of Buy on Board, their first reaction was, well, a bit skeptical.

But we pressed on with almost daily conference calls with teams from different divisions all over the company to build a business process. We went to the domiciles, set up tables to show flight attendants the meal boxes, to answer their questions about BOB and to hand out samples for them to try.

The next biggest challenge was getting customers to pay for something they used to receive for free. Although the customer response was positive from the beginning, BOB took time to evolve.

What was really important in shaping this program was feedback from customers on what they preferred, and continuous attention to what our flight attendants said was working and what they said wasn’t.

Providing BOB meals was initially outsourced to our caterers, but it was later brought back in-house, as we thought we could do a better job of improving the cost, quality and consistency of service.

We moved from large, full-meal boxes containing multiple fresh items to a combination of a la carte, shelf-stable snack boxes and fresh food.

We looked to Tom McGrane and Julia Stamberger from Marketing to design the boxes and find the unique shelf-stable food items that would differentiate our product. They did a terrific job.

We now offer four different snack boxes: the minimeal, quickpick, jumpstart and funpack -- along with a variety of fresh food items like salads and wraps.

The caterer-designed BOB meals were originally offered at a variety of prices. But since bringing the program in-house, we have moved to a single price point of $5 for all products on board, including liquor. This simplifies the sales transaction on board for both the customer and the flight attendant.

From its humble beginnings across 12 markets on 210 daily flights in late 2003, BOB is now offered on 450 daily Ted and mainline flights in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Central America and to sun destinations in Mexico.

Snack boxes are sold on all Ted flights over 2-and-half hours and mainline flights over 3-and- half. Fresh food is offered, in addition to the snack box, on flights over 5 hours.

On an average, 15 percent of our customers purchase BOB products on the 3-and-half to 5-hour flights and double that number – 30 percent – on longer transcontinental and Hawaii flights.

We recently received a note from a customer who wrote to thank us for his Buy on Board meal. He said, "The breakfast was excellent. And for $5, I could not have purchased on the concourse, the quality or quantity of food served.” We're getting this kind of direct feedback more and more…and it's very gratifying.

Support for BOB internally has come full circle too, from, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” to “Hey, the customers really like this. And BOB is good.”

We actively manage the program to ensure we board the right quantities, so anyone who wants food won't get turned away. Flight attendants recognize that they have a good product to offer, and customers really appreciate the service.

BOB is a success: Since the launch, our domestic Marketrak meal ratings have been above goal, and in several months we’ve set all-time highs. And as Glenn said, BOB is now generating revenue for United.

It works for our customers, it works for our employees, and it works for United’s bottom line.

We won’t rest on our laurels, and we will continue to improve BOB. We will soon be able to support advance sales to groups of customers; we want to make BOB purchases an option in the Easy Check-in process; and we are planning to allow onboard purchases with a credit card. So stay tuned.

Glenn…

GLENN

Thanks very much, Cindy. And thanks for all of the hard work that you and your teammates have done.

The Buy on Board program is also a good example of United employees, from all around the organization, working together as one company.

Flight attendants have done a great job of supporting this program and providing important feedback that helped improve the product for our customers. Customer Service stepped up to help with the cash management and provide gate announcements. Reservations, Sales and Marketing are making sure that our customers know that Buy on Board will be available for them.

And of course, the program could not work without Len Sacchitello and his team managing the daily catering operations.

I'lI be talking this evening here in San Francisco to the Commonwealth Club, a group of businesspeople and community leaders.

In my remarks, I'll tell the audience about the significant progress that we've made despite the many challenges facing the industry and facing United -- challenges that some of the other U.S. legacy carriers are only now beginning to confront.

I am going to tell them that we've come so far because we're making all our decisions based on what's right for our company…and because we've learned to balance the interests of our three key stakeholders – our customers, our employees and our investors.

Reaching that balance for all three groups is critical for success in everything that we do at United, including decisions we make on the products and services that we offer our customers, just as we've heard from Cindy on the call.

So that’s all for now. I'll be talking to you again soon. Until then, stay focused on our customers and on one another…and stay united.