AATSEEL flight arrangements

[Jerry Ervin]

Dear SEELANGers,

Since a goodly number of you will be coming to AATSEEL 2001 (New Orleans)
by air, you might want to check with your carrier about changes in
schedules.

Best regards,

Jerry

*  *  *  *  *
Gerard L. (Jerry) Ervin
Executive Director, American Ass'n of Teachers of 
  Slavic & E European Languages (AATSEEL)
1933 N. Fountain Park Dr., Tucson, AZ 85715 USA
Office phone/fax/messages:  520/885-2663
Email:  <AATSEEL at CompuServe.com>
AATSEEL Home Page: <http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~aatseel/>
2001 conference:  27-30 December, New Orleans, LA
AATSEEL can now accept VISA, MASTERCARD, DISCOVER, AM. EXPRESS
*  *  *  *  *


--------------- Forwarded Message ---------------

United Plans Many Changes in Current Bookings

October 16, 2001

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.

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