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Information about United Airlines

United Airlines (UAL) is an American airline, the second largest in the
world. It is based in Chicago, Illinois It employs around 84,000 people and
operates around 540 aircraft (Jan 2002). Since 1994, 55% of the company is
owned by its employees, which makes it the largest employee owned company in
the world. In 2001 the company lost $2,137 million on revenues of $16,138
million and in 2002 the company was forced into bankruptcy protection.

United has hub operations in O' Hare International Airport in Chicago,
Illinois, Denver International Airport near Denver, Colorado, Dulles
International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, San Francisco International
Airport in San Francisco, California, Los Angeles International Airport in 
Los Angeles, California, and New Tokyo International Airport in Narita, Japan.

United has the United Express airlines do its regional flying.

United uses Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida as a focus city
for Latin American flights, and has rights to fly international flights
beyond London Heathrow Airport in London, UK. Those rights are only used on
one flight, that being the Chicago - London - Brussels route.

UA is part of the Star Alliance and currently codeshares with SNCF French
Rail to stations in France.

UAL originated in the air mail service of Walter Varney, founded in 1926. In
only four years the company included a number of airlines, aero
manufacturing companies and several airports, it was also closely associated
with the new firm of William Boeing. Following the Air Mail Scandal of 1930,
by 1934 the company still held its airlines routes but had lost all its
non-airline holdings and had a new president in William A. Patterson (who
remained in that office until 1963). During WW II United was involved in the
training of ground crews and material transportation. Post-war United
benefited from the boom in demand, operating out of new operations hub in
Denver. The company merged with Capital Airlines in 1965(?), making it one
of the largest commercial airlines in the world, in 1968 the company
reorganized, creating UAL, Inc., with United as a wholly owned subsidiary.
United also began 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. The economic turmoil from the 1970s and the pressures of
the Airline Deregulation Act (1978) affected the company, with losses and a
greatly increased turnover in top management. The company also diversified
and changed its name twice before returning to its airline business in 1987.
In 1990 the company initially expanded aggresively, but the aftermath of the
Gulf War and increased competition led to losses of $332m in 1991 and $957m
in 1992. Another reorganization changed the company into majority
employee-owned in 1994. In 1997 it joined the Star Alliance with Air Canada,
Lufthansa, SAS and Thai Airways. It was among the first to introduce the
Boeing 777 twin-jet on trans Atlantic routes.

As part of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack, two United Airlines
planes were hijacked, a Boeing 767 that crashed into one of the twin towers
of the World Trade Center in New York City, and a Boeing 757 that is
suspected to have been directed towards either the White House or Camp David
by the hijackers, but which was overtaken by a group of passengers from the
hijackers and crashed in a small Pennsylvania town instead.

In December of 2002, UAL Corporation filed for chapter 11 protection against
bankruptcy. It has been commented that this development was triggered in
part by the repercussions that the aforementioned events had on the North
American airline industry as a whole and on United in particular. However
the rise of low-cost competitors and problems with unions and within the
management structure of the company were also significant. The immediate
reason for the filing was the US government's refusal to grant United a $1.5
billion loan from the government airline aid program. The company was then
forced to seek debtor-in-possession financing from commercial sources to
cover the expected future loses.

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