Hello this is Jane Allen with an update for Friday, October 14, 2005.

I look forward to letters from customers like Kathleen Seelye. To mark her transition to the ranks of million milers, she chose to commemorate the occasion by writing to the crew on her flight.

She wrote, "I know how hard these past few years have been for all of you, yet United employees still greet me with a smile and provide excellent, high-quality service. …No matter what the circumstance, I can always count on United for help, and that's why I, and so many others, are out there believing strongly in your continued success - we just forget to say it."

The crew on this particular flight consisted of Denver-based flight attendants Gemma Reutter, Jennifer Moran and He Jung NHo. But I believe that Kathleen was expressing her appreciation for all the crews that she has flown with over the years. Thank you Gemma, Jennifer and He Jung, and thanks to all of the flight attendants whose extraordinary service inspired such loyalty.

There are many customers like Kathleen who have remained loyal to United through the turbulent times of the last four years. Despite the challenges that we have faced, we have tried to always keep the customer first. But we haven't, as a company, always been able to deliver the experience we know our customers expect.

Many customers have been exceedingly patient, which allowed us to do the work necessary for our restructure. But they won't be patient forever, and as I said last week, we are now in the position with the restructure coming to an end, to focus all of our resources on our customers and future success. We began this quarter by putting extra focus on the customer drivers of definite intent to repurchase, or DIR. Onboard employees play a key role because Marketrak ratings for flight attendants and meals are two important drivers of DIR, and if we achieve our fourth-quarter DIR goal, every employee will be rewarded with eight service-charge waived travel segments.

Overall, United exceeded its September DIR goal of 37.2 percent, coming in at 37.4. The good news is that our overall rating for international flights of 35.3 puts us above goal for the second month in a row.

From a flight attendant perspective, our overall international flight attendant rating for September came in at 57.2. Year-to-date we are at 58.2, which is below the annual goal of 59.7. In North America, we achieved a flight attendant rating of 61.6. Year-to-date we are 1.5 points above the annual goal of 59.8.

As for meals, our overall ratings in North America came in at 45.7 - our highest North America meal rating ever. Overall international meal ratings were 41.8. Year to date we are at 41.3, which is below our annual goal of 43.2.

In Onboard, supervisors have been in briefings and planeside talking with you about the issues you've identified that have customer impact and drive customer intent to repurchase. Aircraft condition and cleanliness, inoperative entertainment systems and catering and provisioning inconsistencies are just some of the issues being discussed. We will work with the appropriate departments to ensure we are jointly focused on continuous improvement in these areas, which we know have an impact on you and our customers. Thank you for providing valuable feedback. We'll keep you informed of the outcomes.

Finally, you may have seen the USA Today article featuring DCA-based flight attendant Laura Brandle. The newspaper approached us to chronicle several days in the life of one flight attendant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the profession. This was done over the course of several days in August.
In the final story, the reporter gave prominence to the safety and security aspect of the job, while touching on the great service that all of you provide to our customers.

We are pleased that our flight attendants received such great visibility in the national media. I want to thank Laura for her 38 years of service. We are proud to have her represent United for this article.

That's all for today. Fly safely and thanks for listening.