This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. Business Fliers' Loyalty Is United Asset December 10, 2002 By JANE L. LEVERE with SUSAN STELLIN Its hope for a federal bailout may be dashed, its workers reeling, its creditors worried, its investors shellshocked and its future uncertain. But just listen to its frequent-flying customers. "Right up until the very end I will stay loyal to them, until there's no more United to fly," said James Digironimo, president of James Martin Ltd., a jewelry company in New York. "United is always the same, very consistent," said Jim Roseto, director of business development at SpectraLink, in Boulder, Colo., a maker of workplace wireless telephone systems. "It's like Wal-Mart. When you're in Florida, Colorado, New York, you can expect the people and planes to be the same. I'll continue to use them." Russell Hyman, a management consultant in Chicago, said: "Yes, I'm concerned about the bankruptcy. But at the moment, I won't take any other airlines." The negatives are pretty plain - muddled finances, worker discontent, hungry rivals. Yet United, which filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, has an intangible asset as it struggles to ride out the crisis: the loyalty of its longtime business customers. Not unconditional loyalty, to be sure. Mr. Roseto says he has taken to flying on Frontier Airlines sometimes to save money, though he still flies United twice a month. Mr. Hyman regrets the disappearance of caviar from first class, and says he does not believe United's excuse of a world sturgeon shortage. And Sarah Woods, a senior vice president at Navigant International in Santa Ana, Calif., is distressed about the elimination of United's 1K rooms at airports for customers who fly more than 100,000 miles a year. "I no longer have the perk of being in a smaller room where they get to know you," Ms. Woods said. "Now I have to belong to the Red Carpet room." Nor is the airline without its defectors. Tony Korner, publisher of Artforum magazine in Manhattan, says he will be wary of flying United again after he asked for a blanket on a flight from Tokyo to New York and "they didn't have any." And Bob Markese, chief executive of Applimation, a software company, has shifted his allegiance from United to low-cost competitors like Southwest and ATA. Although Mr. Markese, who commutes weekly to the company's New York City headquarters or its Ann Arbor, Mich., office from his home in suburban Chicago, has stuck with United most of the last 15 years, he said that loyalty had "really significantly waned" in the last couple of years. "If the service is exactly the same, when you couple it with the huge difference in the fare from Chicago to New York, you say I can't justify another $400 or $600 to fly on United versus ATA," he said. But, other fliers say, that is a big if. Bruce Matthews, sales executive for Synetix, a scientific research company in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., will not fly on ATA because, he says, "I've heard they have too many issues with plane maintenance and number of flights." He avoids American, too, even though it has a hub in Chicago, because he once had a run-in with its staff "and I found them not as as friendly as United." And United? Well, Mr. Matthews has flown more than a million miles on the airline, which unlike most discount carriers has an exhaustive international route structure. The staff is friendly, he says, it flies everywhere he needs to go and it addresses problems quickly. When a flight from Chicago to San Francisco was canceled because of bad weather two years ago, he says, he got a letter of apology and voucher for $300 off another flight a few days later. Mr. Hyman, the Chicago consultant, says he flies United to Asia and Australia at least six times a year and gets the royal treatment when he arrives. In Hong Kong, he says, "they meet you at the gate and drive you to customs in a golf cart." Once, when a Sydney-Los Angeles flight was canceled, United booked him on an Air New Zealand flight, escorted him to that airline's desk and made sure his luggage was properly checked. For Marianne Fisher, owner of Paul Fisher Inc., an import-export company in New York, it is the personal touch that counts. "When I get on a plane, the flight attendants greet me," she said. "The airline sends me coupons for upgrading once a year." Six months ago, as she was heading to the gate in Heathrow Airport for a flight to Kennedy Airport, a United employee told her the flight had been overbooked - but not to worry, she had been put on a Virgin Atlantic flight and put on that carrier's "upper class." "They didn't just send me over to figure it out for myself," she said. "They immediately made sure I was taken care of." Testimonials from business travelers are not the only indication of United's versatility in the months ahead. Industry experts say the airline has advantages for weathering the storm that previous troubled carriers did not. Hal Rosenbluth, chief executive of Rosenbluth International, the travel-management company, says that evidence, both anecdotal and statistical, suggests that customers will indeed stick with United, partly because bankruptcy has lost its stigma and partly because corporate contracts with the airline often require employees to keep flying it. Thom Nulty, president of Navigant International, another travel-management company, says United's hugeness makes it difficult for many fliers to defect, and adds that its frequent-flier program will continue to keep others in its camp. Randy Petersen, publisher of Inside Flyer, agreed, saying United has something like 44 million Mileage Plus members worldwide, including more than 800,000 who are elite frequent fliers. Moreover, Mr. Petersen said he did not expect any "ugly marketing" by United's competitors because "all the other airlines are not that far removed from its situation." Justin Spring, a New York author who flies frequently to San Francisco to work on book projects, muses that United's troubles might mean better service ahead, not worse. "Since it's going bankrupt, they treat you really well," Mr. Spring said. "The flight attendants go out of their way to be nice." Few fliers wax as enthusiastic as Mr. Digironimo, the New York jeweler, and that may be significant because he has had more opportunity than most people to do comparison shopping. He has flown 100,000 miles or more on United each year the last nine years, he says, and he racks up an additional 250,000 miles annually on other airlines. His travels take him all over the United States, Europe and Asia. "Of all the major carriers, United has been the one that's consistently taken care of me best," he said. His devotion dates back nine years to the time United plucked him from an endless wait at the Hong Kong airport for a delayed Northwest flight to New York and flew him back home first class. Today, he says, he flies to Dallas through Chicago just to take United, not for the miles. "I just like flying United," he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/business/10TRAV.html?ex=1040529306&ei=1&en=b11503d0bbbf11a6 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company