United has had a lot of employee problems like USAirways. It's amazing that both airlines invested in a lot of fixed capital such as airplanes, lounges, etc. but neglected the customer demands and employee relationships. I think asking for concessions from the F/As when the fellow pilots are making so much money is a bit ridiculous. Very urgent thing to do is to sit down and talk with the reps of different employee groups, sort of what Wolf did when he took over US. Of course, you need a candidate that will be not only convincing , but also someone who is brave enough to keep the promisses. Develop some kind of incentive plans for the employees so that they can show some enthusiasm for the work they do at UAL. For instance, every employee of Alaska Airlines that I met so far told me nothing but great things about their company. Give that kind of sprit to the employees. Reward success, innovative ideas and feeling as one to the employees. Make sure that the mechanic understands that he/she will not have a job without a happy F/A, and vice versa. Build that sprit among the employee members. Yields are definately down and will be down some more time. Use IT more efficiently to reduce the costs of distribution, the cost of processing all the bookings. Allow people, including the corporate flight departments to use Internet booking instead of the 800 number for the corporate desk. Streamline the fleet as much as possible. Replace the 733s with A319/A320s in waves so that you can have one less of a fleet type. Stop trying to be the cheapest airline, but try to be the airline of everyone. Offer great business fares and pamper the people flying on business, at the same time sell the empty seats at a cut rate instead of making them fly empty. Do not go against WN. They are all different game, and leave them alone. Do go after JetBlue , but with better service, not even lower fares. If the business traveler is not flying as much, the cargo traffic is still not too bad. Take advantage of the space under the belly. Do not buy any other airline, that would mean more debt load for the company. Stay away from the airlines with higher costs, such as US. Work a deal with commuters to funnel in more traffic to the hubs and at the same time start some point to point service with RJs that will use the United Airlines color scheme. Start service to some markets that are not served from IAD, like IAD-SAT, IAD-MCI with those planes. That's all I can think about for now... BAHA Fan of running an airline in the virtual world