United Airlines
United Airlines, the primary subsidiary of the
UAL Corporation, is a
major airline of the
United States headquartered in
unincorporated Elk Grove Township,
Illinois, near
Chicago's
O'Hare International Airport, the airline's largest traffic
hub, with 650 daily departures. Starting in early 2007, United Airlines will move their headquarters to downtown
Chicago.
As of
July 31,
2006, United was the world's second-largest airline in terms of revenue-passenger-kilometers (behind
American Airlines), fourth-largest in terms of total operating revenues (behind
Air France-KLM,
American Airlines, and
Delta Air Lines), and fourth-largest
airline in terms of total passengers transported (behind
American Airlines,
Delta Air Lines and
Southwest Airlines). United has roughly 54,000 employees and operates approximately 495
aircraft.
On
February 1,
2006, United emerged from
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection under which it had operated since
December 9,
2002, the largest and longest airline bankruptcy case in history.
United Airlines operates 3,700+ flights a day to 210+ destinations in 29 countries from hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Routes
United operates an extensive domestic route network concentrated in the
Midwestern and
Western United States. United is also prominent in transcontinental,
transatlantic, and
transpacific service. It is by far the leading US carrier to
Hawaii and
Asia, flying 25,821,884 transpacific RPMs in 2005 or 300 weekly departures; in 2005, United carried 1.9 million passengers to the Hawaiian Islands. It is also one of only two US carriers permitted to fly to
London Heathrow Airport under the
Bermuda II agreement, and the only US carrier which operates its own aircraft from the mainland US to
Australia (
Hawaiian Airlines flies from
Honolulu to
Sydney and
Continental Airlines maintains a route from
Guam to
Cairns). United Airlines is (or will be) the only US carrier to serve
Vietnam and
Kuwait.
United operates a low-cost leisure airline called
Ted. The name is taken from the last three letters of its parent Uni
ted. Ted serves leisure destinations within the United States, Mexico, and Canada with 240 daily flights utilizing 56 aircraft. Ted was created to compete with other low-cost airlines like
Frontier and
Southwest Airlines.
United has focused for the last several years on its international presence, notably in the
People's Republic of China (with nonstop flights to
Beijing and
Shanghai from its hubs in Chicago and San Francisco). The airline also hopes to begin flying to Guangzhou from San Francisco in the near future [
1]. These routes offer a higher proportion of premium fare passengers while being relatively insulated from the cutthroat competition in the domestic market, especially from low-cost carriers. United has also focused more on Latin America, a region from which it had largely retreated in the last decade, and added new destinations and frequencies to Mexico and the Caribbean and will continue to do so into the next decade.
New Routes
*United added 21 weekly flights between the mainland and
Hawaii in June 2006 for a total of 227 weekly flights. United will launch new weekend
San Diego-
Honolulu and
Seattle-
Honolulu service, and add three daily flights departing from
Los Angeles with service to
Lihue,
Kona, and
Maui to complement its five-times-a-day service from
Los Angeles and
San Francisco to Honolulu, and four-times-a-day service from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Maui.
*United will inaugurate new daily
San Francisco-
Toronto and
Washington Dulles-
Albuquerque service on
Airbus A319 aircraft starting September 2006.
*United is planning to inaugurate nonstop
Washington Dulles-
Kuwait service at the end of October 2006 pending
Kuwaiti government approval. It will operate three flights a week, departing Washington on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and departing Kuwait on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays with
Boeing 777-200 aircraft.
*United is planning to discontinue its daily
New York JFK-
London Heathrow flight and shift its New York JFK-
Tokyo Narita flight to its hub at Washington Dulles; United will also be allocating additional capacity to the Asia-Pacific region with resuming nonstop
San Francisco-
Taipei Chiang Kai Shek flights, as well as increased service to
Incheon (will now be year round), and
Hong Kong.
|
Boeing 777-200 in United's current livery, being phased in starting in 2004 |
As of
December 31,
2005, United operates 460 aircraft (230 owned, 230 leased) with a weighted average fleet age of 10.7 years.
United is one of the last two US
major carriers (American Airlines being the other) to operate three-class service, mostly on international and high-revenue domestic routes. Most flights within North America and to Hawaii utilize two-class aircraft, while all Ted aircraft are one-class. United brands its classes as UnitedFirst, UnitedBusiness, and UnitedEconomy. As with most airlines, actual service levels vary with route, flight, and aircraft configuration.
United's mainline fleet features Economy Plus, a forward section in the economy cabin that offers an additional 5 to 6 inches (127 to 152 mm) of space although cabin service is the same. Seats in this section are reserved for passengers on certain high-fare tickets, for Premier members of United's frequent flyer program, and elite-level members of Star Alliance frequent flyer programs. As of August 2005, Economy Plus access was also available to non-elites through an annual subscription fee or a per-flight upgrade fee.
United Airlines Fleet| Type ¦¦ rowspan="2"|Number | United Airlines Type | Type Number | Seats | Seat Classes | Orders/Options | Notes | | Economy |
|---|
| Airbus 319-100 | 55 | N/A | N/A | 120 | 8 | 0 | 112 | 23 | Domestic/short-haul, used on some transcontinental routes |
| Airbus 320-200 | 97 | Mainline | 41 | 138 | 12 | 0 | 126 | 18 on deferred order | Domestic/short-haul, used on some transcontinental routes |
| Ted | 56 | 156 | 0 | 0 | 156 |
| Boeing 737-300 | 64 | Standard | Unk | 120 | 8 | 0 | 112 | No | Domestic/short-haul, being replaced by Airbus A319 and A320 |
| Former Shuttle | Unk | 128 | 8 | 0 | 120 |
| Boeing 737-500 | 30 | Standard | Unk | 104 | 8 | 0 | 96 | No | Domestic/short-haul, being replaced by Airbus A319 and A320 |
| Former Shuttle | Unk | 110 | 8 | 0 | 102 |
| Boeing 747-400 | 30 | N/A | N/A | 347 | 14 | 73 | 260 | No | Used on Trans-Pacific, IAD-FRA, IAD-LHR routes |
| Boeing 757-200 | 97 | Standard | 84 | 182 | 24 | 0 | 158 | No | Used on transcontinental, Hawaii, Latin America routes |
| p.s | 13 | 110 | 12 | 26 | 72 |
| Boeing 767-300ER | 35 | Domestic | 14 | 244 | 34 | 0 | 210 | No | Used on transcontinental, transatlantic, interhub, Hawai'i, Latin America routes |
| International | 21 | 193 | 10 | 32 | 151 |
| Boeing 777-200/200ER | 52 | Domestic | 6 | 348 | 36 | 0 | 312 | No | Launch customer and primary design partner.
Used on transatlantic, transpacific, transcontinental, interhub, Hawaii routes |
| Transatlantic/pacific | 46 | 258 | 12 | 49 | 197 |
| Transpacific | 253 | 10 | 45 | 198 |
Several aircraft types have common type ratings; flight crews are certified to operate either aircraft without any additional training. The Boeing 767 and 757 have a common type rating; crews trained to operate the Boeing 767 can operate the Boeing 757 and vice versa. Additionally the A320 and A319 have a common type rating as do the 737-300 and 737-500. The A320 and A319, and to a lesser extent the two 737 types, are so commonly substituted for one another that economy row numbers have been synchronized between the two.
United was the launch customer for a number of aircraft types, including the
Douglas DC-10 (with
American Airlines) and several Boeing aircraft: the
727 (with
Eastern Air Lines), the
737-200, the
767, and the
777.
United Express
United Express is United's
regional airline feeder operation. United Express is the marketing name for several small airlines that operate under contract to fly passengers from small cities in the U.S. and
Canada to United hubs. Although the aircraft are painted in United colors, they are separate companies with different crews and management. United Express operates 292 jet and turboprop aircraft to 150 destinations with over 2,000 daily departures. In 2005, United Express flew a combined total of 17 billion revenue RPM's.
Star Alliance
UA is a founding member of the
Star Alliance, through which it is a marketing partner of 16 other international carriers. It has special partnerships with Star members
Lufthansa (including profit-sharing on certain transatlantic routes), and with
US Airways (featuring closely linked frequent flyer programs.)
Separately, United currently codeshares with
SNCF French Rail as United Ground Link to stations in
France and has marketing agreements of varying intimacy with
Aeromar,
Air Dolomiti (a subsidiary company of
Deutsche Lufthansa AG),
Air China,
Aloha Airlines,
Continental Connection (operated by
Gulfstream),
Great Lakes Airlines,
Emirates,
Qatar Airways,
Shanghai Airlines, and
Virgin Blue.
Early beginnings
UAL traces its claim to be the oldest commercial airline in the United States to the
Varney Airlines air mail service of
Walter Varney. Varney's chief pilot, Leon D. "Lee" Cuddeback, flew the first
Contract Air Mail flight in a Swallow
biplane from Varney's headquarters in
Boise, Idaho to the
railroad mail hub of
Pasco, Washington on
April 6,
1926 and returned the following day with 200 pounds of mail. April 6th is reckoned in the United Airlines company history as both its own birthday and date on which "true" airline transport—operating on fixed routes and fixed schedules—began. Varney Airlines' original 1925 hangar served as a portion of the terminal building for the
Boise Airport until 2003, when the structure was replaced.
In 1927, airplane pioneer
William Boeing founded his own airline,
Boeing Air Transport, and soon began buying other airmail carriers, including Varney's. Within four years, Boeing's holdings would grow to include a number of airlines, airplane and parts manufacturing companies, and several airports. In 1929, the company changed its name to United Aircraft - Transport Corp.
In 1930, as the capacity of airplanes proved sufficient to carry not only mail but also passengers, Boeing Air Transport hired a
registered nurse,
Ellen Church, to assist passengers. United claims Church as the first airline
stewardess.
Following the
Air Mail Scandal of 1930, the
Air Mail Act of 1934 banned the common ownership of manufacturers and airlines. United Aircraft-Transport's President
Philip G. Johnson was forced to resign and went on to
Trans-Canada Airlines, the future
Air Canada. William Boeing's company was broken into three: a parts supplier (the future
United Technologies), an aircraft manufacturer (the
Boeing Airplane Company), and an airline group—United Air Lines. The airline company's new president, hired to make a fresh start as airmail contracts were re-awarded in 1934, was
William A. Patterson, who remained as president of United Airlines until 1963.
Expansion into a national carrier
United's early route system, formed by connecting air mail routes to one-another, operated essentially north-and-south along the
West Coast, and east-to-west along a transcontinental route from
San Francisco to the
Midwest and
Mid-Atlantic states via
Denver, Colorado. The early interconnections made at San Francisco and Denver during this early era became the basis of major United hubs in these cities, and still exist today.
During
World War II United trained ground crews, modified airplanes for use as bombers, and transported mail, material, and passengers in the war effort. Post-war United benefitted from both the wartime development of new airplane technologies (like the pressurized cabin which permitted planes to fly above the weather) and a boom in customer demand for air travel. This was also the period in which
Pan American Airways established a Tokyo hub and revived its Pacific route system that would later be acquired by United.
On
November 1,
1955,
United Airlines Flight 629, which was flying from
Stapleton Airport in
Denver to
Portland, Oregon, was bombed, killing everyone on board. The bomb was planted by a man named
Jack Graham, who was executed a year after the explosion [
2].
|
United was an early customer of the Douglas DC-8, which was released months after the Boeing 707, delaying the airline's entry into the jet. |
The company merged with
Capital Airlines on
June 1,
1961, making it the world's largest commercial airline and giving it a route network covering the entire United States.
In 1968 the company reorganized, creating UAL Corporation, with United Airlines as a wholly owned subsidiary.
Deregulation
|
The airline lobbied for transpacific routes for over 20 years, but its westernmost destination was Honolulu until 1983. United is now one of the world's largest transpacific carriers. |
United had begun to seek overseas routes in the 1960s, but the
Transpacific Route Case (1969) denied them this expansion. It did not gain an overseas route until 1983, when they began flights to
Tokyo. By the end of that year, United had flights to 13 Pacific destinations, many of which were with route contracts purchased from the ailing
Pan Am.
Economic turmoil, labor unrest, and the pressures of the 1978
Airline Deregulation Act greatly affected the company, which incurred losses and saw a greatly increased turnover in its senior management through the 1970s and early 1980s.
In May 1981, one week after archrival
American Airlines launched
AAdvantage, the first
frequent flyer program, United launched its Mileage Plus. The
Wall Street Journal mistakenly reported United's program to be the first.
In 1982, United became the launch customer for the
Boeing 767, taking its first delivery of 767-200s on August 19th.
Strike of 1985
On
May 17,
1985 United's pilots went on a 29-day strike claiming the CEO, Richard Ferris, was trying to "break the unions." They used management's proposed "B-scale" pilot pay rates as proof.
American Airlines already had a B-scale for its pilots. Ferris insisted United had to have pilot costs no higher than American's, so he offered United pilots a "word-for-word" contract to match American's, or the same bottom line numbers. The United ALPA-MEC rejected that offer because it meant they would not get their deferred pay raise. The only choice left, to achieve parity with American's pilot costs, was to begin a B-scale for United's new-hire pilots. Ferris wanted that B-scale to merge in the captain's ranks, which was more generous than American's B-scale, which never merged at all. In the final hours before the strike, nearly all issues had been resolved, except for the time length of the B-scale. It appeared that would be resolved too as negotiations continued. ALPA negotiators delivered a new counter-proposal at 12:20 A.M. in an effort to avoid the strike. However, MEC Chairman Roger Hall, who was hosting a national teleconference with F. Lee Bailey, declared the strike was on at 12:01 A.M., on May 17, without consulting the negotiators, who believed they were about to agree on all contract terms with United's management negotiators.
That struggle cost the airline $1 billion, and provoked a long period of labor unrest and financial deterioration that culminated in
bankruptcy nearly 20 years later. Following Ferris' termination by the board, Allegis divested its non-airline properties in 1987 and reverted to the name UAL Corp. That helped clear the path for the United Pilots to do an
ESOP takeover of United, which eventually did happen in 1994.
Employee Stock Ownership Plan
The fall of
Pan Am offered new opportunities for United. In 1991 the company initially expanded dramatically, purchasing
Pan Am's former routes at
London Heathrow Airport and paving the way for the company's first transatlantic flights. However, the aftermath of the
Gulf War and increased competition led to losses of $332m in 1991 and $957m in 1992.
In 1994, 55% of company stock was given to employees in exchange for salary concessions from its unions. The Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) made United the largest
employee-owned corporation in the world. It used the opportunity to create a low-cost subsidiary,
Shuttle by United, in an attempt to compete with
low-cost carriers.
There were three previous attempts to form an ESOP at United, in 1987, 1989, and 1990. Fees paid to advisors on both sides totaled $145 million for all four ESOP plans. An internal pilots' union report by Thomas Sullivan (U.S. Attorney for northern Illinois), revealed that "pilot union leaders made secret agreements in 1989 and 1994 to pay millions of dollars in fees to lawyers already on the union's staff or on retainer. They did not disclose these fees to the rank and file."
That Sullivan report said that Roger Hall, the United-ALPA-MEC chairman, had authorized a payment of $2 million to Charles Goldstein, who was the union's own staff lawyer, but he did not reveal that to his board. The report also concluded that Hall and Goldstein had violated union rules, and many of United's pilots openly complained that the advice from Goldstein could hardly have been objective if he knew the ESOP had to be successful in order to receive that $2 million fee. Union leaders agreed to let Goldstein keep $750,000 of that $2 million, after he threatened a lawsuit. Hall's predecessor, Frederick Dubinsky, also did not reveal to the rank and file that he had authorized a payment of $375,000 to Goldstein after the failed ESOP attempt of 1989. Both Hall and Dubinsky denied they ever did anything wrong, but Hall did resign upon request of the pilot union board.
The Sullivan report also uncovered a $4.12 million "success" fee to be paid to Cohen, Weiss & Simon, which had been receiving hourly billing payments from the union for its work on the ESOP buyout. Again, that fee wasn't common knownledge until after the ESOP was completed. Once that became known, Cohen, Weiss & Simon agreed to return the entire $4.12 million.
United CEO Wolf got a consulting job with Lazard Freres, the very investment company he had hired to advise United's board during the ESOP buyout process. Stewart Oran, the key legal advisor to the pilots' union during all 4 ESOP plans, received a $5.5 million package to join United's management as legal counsel after the ESOP was formed. Meanwhile, all employees who participated in the ESOP took pay cuts ranging from 15 to 25%. They did that in return for the ESOP stock that they received, which eventually became worthless, when United was forced into bankruptcy. [USA Today, "Workers took pay cut while others got rich," July 12, 1995]
In 1995, Roger Hall and Frederick Dubinsky filed a lawsuit against their own MEC, ALPA National, and named numerous ALPA individuals, including Randolph Babbit, the President of ALPA. They alleged that they were libeled and defamed and that their privacy was invaded as a result of an August 1994 letter that alleged they had been guilty of criminal conduct in relation to the ESOP buyouts. The trial court dismissed 15 of the 18 counts in the complaint, but did sustain 3 counts. Both sides appealed and the appellate court reversed the dismissal of 4 of the 15 counts and sent the case back to the trial court for further proceedings. [Chicago Daily Law Bulletin 7/9/99]
Turn of the century developments
In 1997, United founded the
Star Alliance with
Air Canada,
Lufthansa,
SAS and
Thai Airways.
United was a launch customer of the
Boeing 777 and had significant input on its design. It was also the first airline to introduce the twin-jet in commercial service.
In May 2000, United announced plans to acquire competitor
US Airways in a complex deal valued at $11.6 billion. The offer drew immediate scorn from consumer groups and employees of both airlines. By the following year, regulatory sentiment was against the deal, and United withdrew the offer just before the
Department of Justice barred the merger on
antitrust grounds in July. The two airlines subsequently formed a partnership that led to US Airways's entrance into the Star Alliance.
May 2000 also saw a bitter contract dispute between United and its pilots' union. Planning for the busy summer season, United had counted on its pilots flying overtime. However, the pilots could not be forced to work overtime, and most pilots refused to fly the extra hours. Although United knew they would have to cancel numerous flights if this were to happen, they did not hire new pilots to make up for the potential shortage. Over the summer, United ended up having to cancel a large portion of its schedule at its major hubs. Eventually, CEO Jim Goodwin and the rest of the management had to get the pilots back in the cockpits and quickly offered the pilots a 48% increase over four years with up to 28% upfront. The large increase in pay and the loss of many of its frequent fliers, especially business travelers, started United on the road to bankruptcy. Coupled with the terrorist attacks of
September 11th, 2001 and the resulting economic and tourism downturn, United's economic woes went from bad to worse.
Operation Bojinka and September 11th
Operation Bojinka,
Ramzi Yousef and
Khalid Sheik Mohammed's plot against a large number of airliners targeted eight United aircraft flying transpacific routes on
January 21,
1995. While this attack was prevented by an apartment fire in
Manila, a "descendant" of the project perfected by Sheik Mohammed would cause death on United aircraft six years later.
As part of the
September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack, two United Airlines planes were hijacked, a
Boeing 767-222 (
Flight 175) that crashed into one of the twin towers of the
World Trade Center in
New York City, and a
Boeing 757-222 (
Flight 93) that crashed in rural Pennsylvania. The latter was suspected to have been directed towards either the
White House or the
United States Capitol building.
Bankruptcy and reorganization
United, with a strong presence on the West coast, benefited from the
dot-com boom, which boosted traffic (especially premium traffic) to its San Francisco hub. This increase was only temporary unfortunately, and when the 'bubble' finally burst, United was in a worse position before because it had failed to keep its costs under control. Coupled with a battered network (after the dot-com bust) and the
September 11 attacks, the company lost $2.14 billion in 2001 on revenues of $16.14 billion. In the same year United applied for a $1.5 billion loan guarantee from the federal
Air Transportation Stabilization Board established in the wake of the
September 11 attacks. When the application was rejected in late 2002, the company was forced to seek debtor-in-possession financing from commercial sources to cover the expected future losses.
Unable to secure additional capital, UAL Corporation filed for
chapter 11 protection against
bankruptcy in December. The ESOP was terminated, although by then its shares had become virtually worthless. Blame for the bankruptcy has fallen on the events of September 11, which triggered financial crisis in all the major
North American airlines. However, the rise of
low-cost carriers, labor disputes, and problems within the management structure of the company also contributed significantly.
United continued operations during its bankruptcy, but was forced to cut its costs drastically and under delicate terms. Tens of thousands of workers were furloughed, and all city ticket offices in the US closed. It cancelled several existing and planned routes, and eliminated its entire
Latin American gateway and flight crew base at
Miami International Airport after
March 1,
2004.
At the same time, the airline continued to invest in new projects. On
November 12,
2003, it launched a new
low-cost carrier,
Ted, to compete with other low-cost airlines. In 2004 it launched its luxury "p.s." (for "premium service") service on re-configured 757s from
JFK Airport in
New York City to Los Angeles and San Francisco. The service was targeted to business customers and high-end leisure customers in the coast-to-coast market.
On
December 9,
2004, the airline made history when UA869 (747-400) landed at
Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam. The scheduled flight from
San Francisco via
Hong Kong was the first by a U.S. airline since the end of the
Vietnam War, when
Pan Am halted service shortly before the
fall of Saigon.
Financial pressure on the airline was heavy. The
SARS epidemic in 2003 depressed traffic on United's extensive Pacific network. The soaring cost of jet fuel ate eaten away at profits. United made, withdrew, and followed several fare hikes on overseas routes, citing rising fuel costs, in 2004 and 2005. Indeed, two days after its triumphant first flight to Vietnam, United announced that it would cut U.S. flight capacity by 14% after the holidays and add more international flights, which were more profitable.
United took advantage of its Chapter 11 status to negotiate hard-to-cut costs with employees, suppliers, and contractors, including cancellation of feeder contracts with
United Express Atlantic Coast Airlines (which became
Independence Air) and
Air Wisconsin (which became a
US Airways Express carrier).
Most controversial of all, however, was the 2005 cancellation of its pension plan, the largest such default in U.S. corporate history. It renegotiated its contracts with the pilots' and mechanics' unions for lower pay; however, the
Association of Flight Attendants resisted until the bankruptcy court ruled in United's favor. Criticism was also leveled at the CEO, Glenn Tilton, for demanding pay cuts from employees while receiving the highest salary of any major U.S. airline CEO [
3]. Although Tilton's salary was the highest in the industry, his pay mix did not include the level of stock options and bonuses granted to his counterparts.
Originally slated to exit bankruptcy protection after 2½ years in the third quarter of 2005, United requested yet another extension in light of record-high fuel prices. On
August 26,
2005, the bankruptcy court extended the airline's exclusive right to file a reorganization plan to
November 1, although it also stated firmly this extension would be the last. United announced at the same time it had raised $3 billion in exit financing and filed its Plan of Reorganization, as announced, on
September 7,
2005.
The bankruptcy court approved the restructuring plan on
January 20,
2006, clearing the way for United to exit bankruptcy on February 1, 2006, and finally return to normal operations. Its emergence as a smaller, much more efficient carrier has in turn put additional pressure on its competitors to reduce costs and capacity.
On July 16th, 2006, United Airlines announced after months of speculation that it would be moving its headquarters from suburban
Elk Grove Village to the
Chicago Loop. The Top 350 Executives will be moving to 77 Wacker Drive. The Elk Grove Village campus will be known as Operations Center.
Being a major network carrier with several hundred thousand flights per year, United Airlines has had a number of accidents leading to an excess of 1700 fatalities. These accidents include:
*
FAA registration NC13304 (no flight number)
10 October 1933*
Flight 610 (
30 June 1951)
*
Flight 615 (
24 August 1951)
*
Flight 409 (
6 October 1955)
*
Flight 629 (
1 November 1955)
*
Flight 718 (
30 June 1956)
*
Flight 826 (
16 December 1960)
*
Flight 859 (
11 July 1961)
*
Flight 297 (
23 November 1962)
*
Flight 823 (
9 July 1964)
*
Flight 389 (
16 August 1965)
*
Flight 227 (
11 November 1965)
*
Flight 266 (
18 January 1969)
*
Flight 553 (
8 December 1972)
*
Flight 173 (
28 December 1978)
*
Flight 811 (
24 February 1989)
*
Flight 232 (
19 July 1989)
*
Flight 585 (
3 March 1991)
*
Flight 93 (
11 September 2001 -
terrorist attacks)
*
Flight 175 (
11 September 2001 -
terrorist attacks)
United adopted a red, white and blue shield logo in 1936, but its use varied widely and was eventually abandoned altogether in the early 1970s. In 1974, the airline commissioned designer
Saul Bass to develop a new logo. The "
tulip" logo of colored stripes representing overlapping letter "U"s remains in use today with only slight modification.
The early slogan "The Main Line Airway," emphasizing its signature New York-Chicago-San Francisco route, was replaced in 1965 with "Fly the Friendly Skies." The "friendly skies"
tagline was used until 1996, sometimes with other United Slogans such as "The Great White Way to New York" (1971-1972), "The Friendly Skies of your land" (a/k/a "Mother Country") (1972-1976), "You're the boss" (1976-1977), "United we fly" (1977-1978), "That's what friendly skies are all about" (1980), "You're not just flying, you're flying the Friendly Skies" (mid 1980's), "United - Rising" during the mid 1990's, and "We Are United" following the September 11th incident. Most recently, United started using the tagline "It's time to fly", voiced over by
Robert Redford in their famous commercials using their now renowned animations.
United's theme song is
George Gershwin's
1924 "
Rhapsody in Blue", which it licensed from Gershwin's estate for $500,000 (as noted in
Eldred v. Ashcroft 537 U.S. 186 (2003)). "Rhapsody" would have entered the
public domain in 2000, but the
Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 extended its copyright another 20 years.
*
United Center
Official sites
*
United Airlines**
Worldwide sites*
TedMarketing
*
The United Shop, official online retailer for United- and Star Alliance-themed gift merchandise
*
Hemispheres, United's in-flight
magazine*
United Rhapsody, with video clips of commercials featuring the "It's Time To Fly" tagline
Employees
*
Mainliner Clubs, network of non-profit social clubs for United employees
*
A Village United, news site maintained jointly by United's unions
Route maps
*
Current route maps*
Historial route maps and timetablesCredit risk
*
Moody's KMV Default Case StudiesHistory
*
A Chicago Tribune Special Report: United's rhapsody of blues*
Super70s.com: United AirlinesCustomer relations
*
United Customer Relations*
Untied.com, complaint site
Frequent flyer miles
*
Mileage Plus official homepage*FlyerTalk.com:
United Mileage Plus*MileGuide.com
Earning miles on United Airlines*MileMaven.com
United Mileage Plus Bonus Miles PromotionsPhotos
*
Photos of United Airlines Aircraft at Airliners.net
Virtual airlines
*
United Virtual Airlines -
flight sim enthusiasts
Fleet information
*
United Airlines Fleet Age*
United Airlines Seating Charts
