Hi, it's Glenn, and it's Monday, November 14.

We announced on Friday that we will be hiring more than 2,000 new flight attendants in 2006. So, today on the call with me is Diane Sawyer, on special assignment as project manager for our flight attendant recruitment project in Onboard Service.

When the recruitment Web site went live on Sunday, we received more than 7,500 applications that day…an overwhelming response, and more than seven times the number that we had expected.

The industry continues to be challenging, evidenced by three carriers recently filing for the protection of the court, and many of our competitors are only beginning to confront the many challenges that we at United have already addressed.

In contrast, building on the work on the restructuring and the improvements made in operations, we're continuing to strengthen United's core business. Significantly, the choices we've made in our business strategy have enabled us to bring 2,000 new employees into United.

So, Diane, tell us more about the project.

DIANE:

Thank you, Glenn. Earlier this year, we determined that we would need to hire flight attendants to meet the needs of the business.

Increased aircraft utilization, attrition and our move to put more aircraft in international markets are all driving the need to add flight attendants for the first time in more than four years.

Pre-2001, our hiring process took a significant number of people and resources. We held open houses in various cities around the country, supported by advertising in each city, and we conducted the screening interviews ourselves.

We took the opportunity to rethink what we had done in the past. Historically, the recruitment, interview and hiring process took three months to accomplish and was expensive. We needed to move faster and more efficiently.

So, we partnered with Human Resources to chart a new path - one that took advantage of new practices and developments since 2001.

The first step was looking both within and outside the industry to identify some best practices. We reached out to a number of airlines, including a visit to JetBlue. They shared their approach, some of which wouldn't work for us, but there were some practices that we picked up on, like online recruiting.

Armed with new thinking, we began developing a different approach. And we got help from around the company. In addition to HR, we brought in people from strategic sourcing, facilities, finance, communications, labor relations, legal, flight operations, united.com and more. We also had our Onboard field organization deeply involved, bringing in a number of managers and supervisors from the field.

The other critical part of the process was tapping into our incumbent flight attendants to ensure that we knew what was required to care for and serve our customers on the plane today. We knew our flight attendants would play a key role in identifying what it would take for these new hires to succeed -- and they were happy to tell us. The candor and passion that so many of our flight attendants feel for their profession and for flying United came through in many ways during those conversations and online surveys.

People who have worked with me on this project have heard me say, "It takes a village,” more than once, and it's really true. We would not have been able to do this project faster, smarter and at a lower cost than we did in the past without a great deal of thinking and great effort on the part of many people. We took a process that had been three months and reduced it to three weeks.

I've been with United for 27 years, and I have never been part of team that had this level of cooperation and participation given the number of departments that were included.

I think one of the keys to success was involving everyone early. We really didn't just make assignments to people in other departments. They were part of the working team, and we had great suggestions from team members in areas that might have seemed outside of their expertise, but a good idea is a good idea no matter where it comes from.

And the result? Well, it's beyond our expectations. During the first day of recruiting, as Glenn said, we had more than 7,500 applicants!

Part of our new approach was to use a national firm that specializes in recruiting to design and manage the online application tool and conduct the initial screening interviews. Based on their experience, they told us we would expect anywhere from 500 to 1,000 applicants on the first day, particularly since we were advertising only in the Washington area -- which was the first location we were hiring and training for.

So, imagine all of our surprise when the first day brought more than seven times what we were expecting. And not only did we get the number, but we got quality applicants, too. Already today – and it's only day two of our recruitment – we've identified more than 2,600 people that best meet the criteria we set. The scheduling tool that arranges interviews for applicants who best meet the criteria is already full for the first three weeks of interviews. The last 24 hours have been overwhelming and greater than we ever expected.

Of course, it wasn't hard to hear that United was hiring flight attendants! We had terrific media coverage in newspapers, on the radio and on television – all of which helped spread the word.

In closing, there are so many people that have worked day-in and day-out just to get us to this point. There are many, including 50 people on the project team, and I wish I could thank them all here. The support and hard work within Onboard and from other divisions and functional groups has been astounding to me – beyond what I've experienced in all my years at United.

There's a great deal of work still ahead. Our first training class is scheduled for Jan. 9, 2006 . We need to successfully hire from the candidate pool, update training, get the training center ready to house the trainees, and complete hundreds of other details.

We're feeling pretty good about where we are.

Back to you, Glenn.

GLENN:

Thanks, Diane, thanks for the report and thanks for all of the hard work that your team has put into the project to make it such a remarkable success. You all deserve to be feeling better than pretty good about where the company is.

This is an excellent example of working across different functional areas, with every individual focused on achieving the best results for the company. It is indicative of the kind of work we're seeing when we think of United, as indeed, one company.

And as Diane has said, our flight attendants play a very critical and an important role in this regard. As everybody on the call knows, we've created differentiated products to meet changing customer demand, and we've set our standards for service delivery significantly higher than many of our competitors, who are focusing on delivering a commoditized product.

Customers' ratings on our service metrics have improved consistently across the board. We're building on the great job that United's flight attendants are doing and bringing more and more people to United to share our focus on the customers.

As we continue to make decisions that are right for United in terms of products and services that we offer, we will always balance the needs of our customers, our employees and our investors.

And as I've said, all of us, working together as one company, will challenge ourselves to do better work every day.

That's it for now. Thanks again, Diane. I'll be talking to you again soon. Until then, stay focused on our customers and on one another…and stay united.