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From today's New York Times Business Section
October 16, 2001
United Plans Many Changes in Current Bookings
By LAURENCE ZUCKERMAN
Memo to United Airlines passengers: check in with your travel agent.
United, the world's second-largest airline, is carrying out the biggest overhaul it has ever made in its flight schedule, requiring it to contact more than five million passengers traveling in November and December, and alert them to the changes.
Thousands of passengers who booked their reservations months in advance for Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holiday travel may find themselves leaving earlier or later than they planned, or on a smaller plane flown by one of United's commuter partners when they had expected to travel on United itself.
The changes are a result of efforts by United, the principal unit of the UAL Corporation (news/quote), to cut costs and match its operations to severely reduced passenger demand in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Other airlines are also making major schedule changes, but United, which had been suffering record losses before the attacks, is cutting back more deeply.
The schedule changes reflect a 23 percent reduction in United's total number of seats, an industry measure of capacity. And they present a trying customer service challenge to United at a time its operations are already under great stress.
Ordinarily, United spends six months preparing a new schedule. In this case, it had weeks. And it has recently begun laying off nearly 20,000 employees.
In a memorandum distributed within the airline on Friday, United said that 90 percent of its advance reservations, or 5.2 million passengers traveling between Oct. 31 and Jan. 7, would be affected by the changes.
It warned, too, that as it introduces the schedule into computer reservation systems this week, some customers' itineraries could be changed more than once.
United, which has been troubled by labor disputes and strategic blunders in recent years, had been severely criticized for its customer service long before Sept. 11.
"It's been a challenging time for all the airlines," said Michael Linenberg at Merrill Lynch (news/quote) in New York. "But for the ones who have not been the best at serving their customers, it is going to be a tougher time."
United said it would use every means it had to alert customers to the changes including phone calls, letters and e-mail and is working on a new feature on its Web site that will enable passengers to review changes.
"Our goal is to reach people, and we think we can do it," a spokesman, Joe Hopkins, said.
For the most part, Mr. Hopkins said, people will depart within 90 minutes of their previously scheduled times and will reach their destinations on the same day they had planned.
Beginning next month, United will offer 1,654 flights on an average day, down from 1,850 a day this month and about 2,400 before Sept. 11.
American Airlines, an AMR unit and the only carrier now larger than United, has said that it will reduce its capacity by 20 percent.
Rivals have not been as forthcoming as United about the challenges they face. Dale Morris, a spokesman for American, said the airline did not know how many of its customers would be affected by its schedule changes, because passengers changed their reservations so frequently.
A spokesman for US Airways, Richard Weintraub, said, "Our calls to customers are being handled in an orderly fashion."
As part of its cutbacks, United has announced that it will discontinue the Shuttle by United service, which was intended to compete with Southwest Airlines (news/quote) on the West Coast, and retire 99 of its 600 aircraft. Only US Airways, which is planning to retire 114 planes, has announced proportionately deeper cuts in its fleet.
United's new schedule reduces the number of early morning and late evening flights, which are often the least crowded.
"We are focusing our flights on the peak hours when business and leisure travelers want to fly," United's vice president for planning, Kevin Knight, said in a statement yesterday.
Other cuts will be made by reducing the number of flights between destinations and by replacing United's big jets with smaller regional jets flown by its commuter affiliates.
United said that only passengers forced to make a stop when they had booked a nonstop flight, or whose reservations were changed to departures more than 90 minutes before or after the previously scheduled times, would be offered the option of a refund.
October 16, 2001
United Plans Many Changes in Current Bookings
By LAURENCE ZUCKERMAN
Memo to United Airlines passengers: check in with your travel agent.
United, the world's second-largest airline, is carrying out the biggest overhaul it has ever made in its flight schedule, requiring it to contact more than five million passengers traveling in November and December, and alert them to the changes.
Thousands of passengers who booked their reservations months in advance for Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holiday travel may find themselves leaving earlier or later than they planned, or on a smaller plane flown by one of United's commuter partners when they had expected to travel on United itself.
The changes are a result of efforts by United, the principal unit of the UAL Corporation (news/quote), to cut costs and match its operations to severely reduced passenger demand in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Other airlines are also making major schedule changes, but United, which had been suffering record losses before the attacks, is cutting back more deeply.
The schedule changes reflect a 23 percent reduction in United's total number of seats, an industry measure of capacity. And they present a trying customer service challenge to United at a time its operations are already under great stress.
Ordinarily, United spends six months preparing a new schedule. In this case, it had weeks. And it has recently begun laying off nearly 20,000 employees.
In a memorandum distributed within the airline on Friday, United said that 90 percent of its advance reservations, or 5.2 million passengers traveling between Oct. 31 and Jan. 7, would be affected by the changes.
It warned, too, that as it introduces the schedule into computer reservation systems this week, some customers' itineraries could be changed more than once.
United, which has been troubled by labor disputes and strategic blunders in recent years, had been severely criticized for its customer service long before Sept. 11.
"It's been a challenging time for all the airlines," said Michael Linenberg at Merrill Lynch (news/quote) in New York. "But for the ones who have not been the best at serving their customers, it is going to be a tougher time."
United said it would use every means it had to alert customers to the changes including phone calls, letters and e-mail and is working on a new feature on its Web site that will enable passengers to review changes.
"Our goal is to reach people, and we think we can do it," a spokesman, Joe Hopkins, said.
For the most part, Mr. Hopkins said, people will depart within 90 minutes of their previously scheduled times and will reach their destinations on the same day they had planned.
Beginning next month, United will offer 1,654 flights on an average day, down from 1,850 a day this month and about 2,400 before Sept. 11.
American Airlines, an AMR unit and the only carrier now larger than United, has said that it will reduce its capacity by 20 percent.
Rivals have not been as forthcoming as United about the challenges they face. Dale Morris, a spokesman for American, said the airline did not know how many of its customers would be affected by its schedule changes, because passengers changed their reservations so frequently.
A spokesman for US Airways, Richard Weintraub, said, "Our calls to customers are being handled in an orderly fashion."
As part of its cutbacks, United has announced that it will discontinue the Shuttle by United service, which was intended to compete with Southwest Airlines (news/quote) on the West Coast, and retire 99 of its 600 aircraft. Only US Airways, which is planning to retire 114 planes, has announced proportionately deeper cuts in its fleet.
United's new schedule reduces the number of early morning and late evening flights, which are often the least crowded.
"We are focusing our flights on the peak hours when business and leisure travelers want to fly," United's vice president for planning, Kevin Knight, said in a statement yesterday.
Other cuts will be made by reducing the number of flights between destinations and by replacing United's big jets with smaller regional jets flown by its commuter affiliates.
United said that only passengers forced to make a stop when they had booked a nonstop flight, or whose reservations were changed to departures more than 90 minutes before or after the previously scheduled times, would be offered the option of a refund.
