March 28, 2007 – Advancing Safety Performance

Hi, it's Glenn.  Operating as one company with shared priorities and a clear understanding of each of our roles is critically important to achieving our performance agenda.  More importantly, it's also the foundation of running a safe airline, which is the most critical goal that all of us share day in and day out. 

No matter where at United we work, safety is the singular goal that affects all of us and our customers who depend on our accuracy, professionalism and  commitment to ensuring our work always puts their safety -- and our own -- before any other decision that we make.

To talk more about the comprehensive approach we take to integrate safety into our day-to-day work, I have asked Bill Yantiss, our vice president of Safety, Security and Quality Assurance, to join me on today's call.  So, Bill, I'll now turn the call over to you. 

Bill:

Thanks, Glenn.  With our increasingly busy operating environment, it's more important than ever to live up to our responsibility of making safety our No. 1 priority.  Since 2001, our employees have done a great job in continuing to improve our safety scorecard.  Aircraft damage rates have steadily declined over the past five years, while employee injuries have decreased 2 to 3 percent each year.

Corporate Safety has several new initiatives that are designed to accelerate our progress in taking the best care of our people, our customers, and our equipment.  The most comprehensive of these is a Safety Management System, or SMS.  This innovative approach to safety will soon be required by the FAA, and, as a result of our past safety performance, United has been asked to provide ideas and input. 

The basic SMS concept is to integrate safety management throughout the airline, from top to bottom, and in every work area.  It begins with a clear safety policy that starts with Glenn and ultimately involves every employee.  It is a tool to identify operational risks that could result in an employee injury or damage to an aircraft.  United has a very specific safety, quality, and security policy outlined in the new Corporate Business Manual.  This year, our challenge is to implement these principles throughout the airline, particularly in our operating areas, and we'll be working closely with the operating groups to make this happen.

An important element of an SMS is an employee safety reporting system where our front-line employees are able to identify safety issues in a non-punitive environment.  United has led the industry in this area with highly successful programs for pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and dispatchers, thanks in part to the support of ALPA, AFA, AMFA and PAFCA.  These programs work well because we have developed trust between our leaders, our employees, the FAA and the unions to work through issues and make our airline a safer operation.  We have learned from our mistakes and changed the way we do business.  In many cases, we have developed new standard operating procedures that make it easier and safer to get the job done.

In 2007, we are working with key stakeholders to lay the groundwork for a self-reporting program for customer service representatives and ramp employees.  We'll work on this complex program over the next 9 months and target to have it in place by January 2008.

To reinforce that safety is a team effort, we recently held Safety Roundtable meetings in Denver, Chicago, and Los Angeles.  Flight attendants, ramp service people, customer service representatives, maintenance representatives, pilots, service partners, and United Express partners got together to share their perspectives and challenges around safety. 

The conversations were lively, and employees learned a lot from each other.  During the Denver roundtable, a ramp service employee revealed that, from his perspective, coping with traffic in the parking envelope and remaining focused on routine safety procedures, such as stopping at stop signs and abiding by traffic rules, are his daily challenge.  In turn, a pilot said his greatest challenge is safely taxiing around different airports, especially with the number of ground vehicles near the terminal. 

In Chicago, the group as a whole discussed the perception that following SOP is sometimes challenging in the face of on-time performance goals.  A ramp employee pointed out that managers have to maintain safety as our No. 1 priority in the face of other performance pressures.  Others responded that they thought better communication could help clarify the relationship between performance and safety.  We agree!

These roundtables are only the beginning of conversations we hope employees will have with each other on the topic of safety.  Awareness of each other's roles and responsibilities is a first step.  Starting this week, you can go to SkyNet and click on the "United in Safety" banner on the homepage, where we'll share more of your peers' perspectives.  In turn, we're going to encourage you to respond with your perspectives online. 

Later this year, we intend to begin to focus on more formal identification of issues through these roundtables and discuss potential solutions.  We hope this will be yet another avenue to tapping into the knowledge of our employees to improve safety and security of our airline.

Focusing on safety is especially timely now.  We're in the middle of our busy Spring break season, with tight operations and difficult weather like we saw in the Northeast earlier this month.  I encourage you to focus on two things.  First, remember to follow standard operating procedures -- good teamwork cannot occur without it.  Our standard procedures were designed for a busy environment and, when done properly, should not take more time.  Second, work well as a team with your colleagues, understanding each other's procedures and how you can best work together to meet our goals for both performance and safety.

Glenn, back to you...

Glenn:

Thanks, Bill.  Much appreciated.  We are finding more ways around the company to bring employees together across tables, similar to your safety roundtables, to discuss issues that are important to us and to our ability to achieve our business goals.  Such dialogues, which are happening at Business Education training, joint meetings with leaders in Flight Operations and Onboard, with our directors and at other events across the company, present an important opportunity to improve our approach to managing the issues we face today. 

They are also a valuable component of our continuous improvement effort.  Surfacing issues, discussing them candidly and openly and without blame, and taking the approach that everything we do can be improved will unlock opportunities and energy across our company, making us more competitive in the long term.

That's all for now on this call.  I'll be talking to you again soon.  Until then, stay focused on our customers, and on one another...and stay united.