United Airlines Research Articles

The Shuttle by United

United Airlines designed the Shuttle by United to compete in the short-haul air service market. Up to mid-1994, United had been steadily losing market share in the short-haul markets to new carriers with lower costs. It seized an opportunity created by an employee buyout through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) to reestablish itself as a competitor in those markets. Using a combination of market research, employee teams, and process analysis, United reduced its costs by 30 percent, increased plane utilization, and cut turnaround time in half from its existing air service. Its efforts have resulted in higher customer satisfaction, improved market share, reduced costs, and increased profitability.

How united and boeing worked together to design and build the 777 airplane

AbstractWhen United Airlines signed up as the launch customer for the new 777 airplane in 1990, it recalled some baggage associated with over 70 years of working with The Boeing Company in which expectations often fell short because communications did not always connect in the right place or at the proper time. This article describes the background against which Boeing and United crafted a unique "Working Together" agreement that took the manufacturer and customer back to achieving mutual objectives in building "a truly great airplane," and provides some strategic insights that point to new directions that can be implemented in supplier‐customer relationships.

What Middle Managers Do in Local Government: Stewardship of the Public Trust and the Limits of Reinventing Government

The most serious resistance to teamwork and participatory management often comes from middle managers, not unions. If employees are making decisions and solving problems, middle managers become superfluous. Too often they stand in the way of actions, because their instinct, to justify their existence, is to intervene (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992; 265). Middle management in most organizations really has little role beyond make activities, such as stopping ideas coming down and stopping ideas going up. Middle managers...are a sponge (former United Airlines President, Ed Carlson, quoted in Peters & Waterman, 1983; 313). Eliminating layers of middle management through contracting out for services and flattening organizations has become accepted catechisms of the modern management faith. It is a faith that is constantly being kindled in the public sector by recurring waves of administrative self-doubt. Some of this self-doubt results from financial pressures to save money by getting rid of costly layers of the organization. Other sources of self-doubt include various organizational and human resource management theories, such as TQM, theory Z, and project team management, which argue that employee ownership, satisfaction, and productivity will be increased if those who produce the service/product have more direct responsibility for managing the conditions of their success (Peters & Waterman, 1983; Cohen & Brand, 1993; Scherkenbach, 1990). More recently, administrative self-doubt in the public sector has been fostered by the call to reinvent government. One of the underlying assumptions of the reinvention movement is that the need for middle managers as well as direct service providers will be less as government abandons its role of rowing in favor of steering (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992; 265 ff.). Like most successful catechisms, these external sources of administrative self-doubt have served to reify the assertions about the useless, costly, and even dysfunctional role middle managers are seen to play in modern organizational life. As middle managers and former middle managers, we are both perplexed and concerned that so little serious attention has been given to what middle managers actually do, especially within the public sector. On the basis of our 80 years of combined experience in the public sector, representing more than a dozen different local government organizations, we do not believe that it is accurate to characterize middle managers as superfluous, hour-glass bottle necks, or make featherbedders.(1) In defending the role of middle managers in this article, we do not wish to quarrel with the obvious need to eliminate unnecessary layers of an organization or the need to increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness through more employee involvement and team management. Middle managers in some organizations have received some bad publicity for some very good reasons. We agree that the traditional corporate hierarchy has tended to reward employees based on the number of individuals they supervise, thus creating excessive competition and expansion at the middle management levels of public as well as private organizations. However, we do not believe that the solution to the problem is to be found in a wholesale attack on the middle-management structure of public organizations. We focus our attention in this article on the role of middle managers in local governmental organizations. While our case observations are drawn from our experience at the local government level, we also believe these functions are performed by public managers in large-scale bureaucratic organizations at both the state and federal levels of government. We first summarize what we believe are the essential generic functions middle managers perform in local levels of government. Contrary to much of the current thinking, we argue that the work is generic to the success of almost all organizations. …

System Operations Advisor: A Real-Time Decision Support System for Managing Airline Operations at United Airlines

Managing daily operations for United Airlines with its size and geographic scope of operations is complex and challenging. Because resources are tightly coupled, even minor perturbations could erode planned operations. United Airlines deploys the System Operations Advisor (SOA), a real-time decision support system at its operations control center (OCC) to increase the effectiveness of its operational decisions. We developed the SOA and implemented it in August 1992. It has been in operation since then. From October 1993 to March 1994, its application saved more than 27,000 minutes of potential delays, which translates to $540,000 savings in delay costs, and the number of flight delays charged to aircraft controllers in systems operations control has dropped by 50 percent since 1992.

Improving Personnel Scheduling at Airline Stations

Many service organizations encounter personnel tour-scheduling problems which focus on the efficient assignment of daily shift schedules and work days to employees across a weekly planning horizon. The airline Industry, in particular, faces a highly complex and difficult tour-scheduling environment for their ground station personnel, During the past twenty years, the airlines have worked to improve continuously their abilities to effectively schedule personnel working at planesides, counters, and gates in airline stations. Substantial reductions in labor costs have resulted from the use of efficient tour-scheduling methods for such workers. We report on the development and implementation of two modules designed to enhance the tour-scheduling process associated with United Airlines’ Pegasys Manpower Planning System. The first module uses column generation to improve the selection of employee shifts. The second module, a local search heuristic based on simulated annealing, enables initial feasible tour-scheduling solutions to rapidly improve. Using data collected from all 119 United Airlines stations across the U.S., we find that the incorporation of the modules results in a potential annual cost savings of more than $8 million. We conclude with a discussion of notable implementation issues and extensions.

Autolanding a 737 Using GPS Integrity Beacons

This paper describes how differential GPS (DGPS) and miniature, low-cost Integrity Beacon pseudolites were used to carry out 110 successful automatic landings of a United Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft. These autopilot-in-the-loop flight tests using GPS Integrity Beacons (low-power, ground-based marker beacon pseudolites placed under the approach path) furnished evidence that GPS can provide the full performance necessary to meet the stringent specifications of Category III. The built-in geometrical redundancy provided by Integrity Beacon ranging is coupled with centimeter-level accuracy to provide the system integrity. This integrity-calculated to be better than one part in a billion probability of missed detection-is achieved independently from ground-based monitors using receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM).

Cities and Airport-Based Economic Development Strategies: An Analysis of Public-Private Deals to Provide Airline Maintenance Operating Centers in Urban Airports

Cities often pursue airport-based projects that promise employment gains and multiplier impacts on business and fiscal development. Airline maintenance operations centers (MOCs) offer these benefits but frequently require massive capital investment by cities and commercial airlines. Influenced by regulatory change and market factors, MOCs are expanding in size and number Because of the airline industry's financial instability, however, major risks are involved with public investment in MOCs. The authors explore the dynamics of these maintenance bases as part of urban economic development strategy. Two recent MOC projects are analyzed: that of American Airlines in Fort Worth and that of United Airlines in Indianapolis. To attract MOCs, both cities committed millions in public funds during intense interurban competitions. The authors examine each deal in terms of public accountability, key beneficiaries, distribution of costs, and consistency with previous plans. The article concludes by identifying planning considerations critical for such economic development strategies.

The baggage system at Denver: prospects and lessons

This article discusses the fundamental design difficulties of the fully automated baggage system originally planned for the New Denver Airport, and their implications for airport and airline management. Theory, industrial experience, and the reality at Denver emphasize the difficulty of achieving acceptable standards of performance when novel, complex systems are operating near capacity. United Airlines will thus make the Denver system ‘work’ by drastically reducing its complexity and performance. Automated baggage systems are risky. Airlines and airports considering their use should assess their design cautiously and far in advance, and install redundant, supplemental systems from the start.

Active pages: Intelligent nodes on the World Wide Web

Active pages provide a common interface to World Wide Web applications, crossing browser, platform and operating system boundaries. They are hypertext documents that present a front−end to intelligent applications. Typically implemented as interpreted programs with an associated database, they use the forms extension for application input. There are three advantages to the active pages approach for application interfaces. Application interfaces are widely accessible because they leverage off of the accessibility of the Web by using HTTP to bridge application and interface. Applications are self−documenting. The hypertext model of the Web makes it simple for active pages to contain embedded documentation and links to auxiliary material. Finally, applications integrate seamlessly with the Web. Active pages may be accessed in the same way and with the same browser as other pages. In this paper, we present our active page design methodology and demonstrate it with two examples from our server: WEBDNS, a facility for editing Internet Domain Name System master files; and The People Directory, an editable personnel database that includes hypertext links to biographical pages. Introduction The World Wide Web can be an interface to shared applications, as well as a mechanism for electronic publishing and collaboration. Applications on the Web can leverage off of the portability of the Web for access. In turn, Web users can leverage off of the flexibility of programs to improve their collaboration. The pages of a shared application change in appearance and content as viewers progress through them. Input from one viewer can become visible to others. The same information can be presented differently, depending on the viewer and their preferences. From the viewers’ perspective, the pages appear active and intelligent. These active pages contrast with other pages, which appear the same from invocation to invocation. We developed an approach to the design of active pages suited to shared applications. To implement the active pages, a server interface for executing programs and a client interface for accepting input is required. We adopted the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) extension to HTTP servers and the forms extension to Web browsers, respectively, because they were immediately available and in widespread use. In this paper, we describe our design and illustrate it with two examples. The first, WEBDNS, facilitates the interactive update of Domain Name System (DNS) master files. The second, The People Directory, presents an editable personnel database. The Advantages of Active Pages Active pages provide several advantages to shared applications. They are widely and conveniently accessible, especially suited to collaborative tasks, encourage documentation, and are seamlessly integrated with other Web pages. Accessiblity The broadest feature of active pages compared to other application interfaces is widespread accessibility. The Web is portable across platform and operating system and network boundaries. Just as for other Web pages, active pages may be accessed interactively, across the network, and from a variety of computer platforms. This makes them appropriate for services that benefit from being freely available to a hetrogeneous community. Collaboration Many users may simultaneously access one active page. This, coupled with the fact that the application executes on the server, rather than the client, allows many users to share few special resources. This type of access is especially useful for collaboration within a user community, and can be applied to many database systems. Two large examples of database systems that can be interfaced to the Web with active pages are SABRE, the United Airlines reservations system, and Lotus Notes.

Who's Accountable?

Recently we once again saw a problem with United Airlines. While the problem has been widely covered on social media, a few of the details have been glossed over. One is that when the customer complained to a flight attendant about what was clearly...

The Yellow Ribboning of America: A Gulf War Phenomenon

Whether tied around a tree, worn on a lapel or displayed in some other fashion, the yellow ribbon in America became a pervasive visible symbol associated with the Gulf War. It generated incredible sales, unprecedented usage and heated debate.Few symbols in recent times have been so quickly embraced by so many segments of society. Yellow ribbons cut across economic, religious, political, social, gender, regional, age and professional barriers. Military families used them, but so did individuals who had no relatives in the military. Politicians, companies, churches, retail businesses, advertisers, municipalities, school children and advocates on both sides of the war issue used them.Yellow ribbons were everywhere. Their presence across both rural and urban America before, during and after the war makes it hard to imagine that most Americans did not encounter them in some fashion. Few could escape seeing ribbons decorating something, reading references to them in newspapers and finding them for sale in stores and displayed on clothing and jewelry. No war in recent American history has seen a home front phenomenon of this type.This article examines the ribbon variants and sales, phases of utilization, widespread use and visibility, ambiguous meanings and controversies that surrounded its' use, and speculates on why it was so popular and the functional roles it played in the lives of the people and communities who displayed it.The Gulf War was neither the first nor the last time that yellow ribbons have been selected by individuals and groups to symbolize support for a cause or to welcome back loved ones. Since 1979, several different groups concerned with the release of Middle East hostages had popularized the ribbon as a symbol for their cause. And extending beyond the context, yellow ribbons were worn in 1985 by non-striking United Airlines flight attendants and pilots to support striking colleagues who were considered held hostage by the company (United A5). And while not entirely yellow, a ribbon was symbolically tied around the Pentagon in August 1985, the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Composed of thousands of individually stitched banners, at least one of which had a yellow ribbon encircling the earth, the Pentagon ribbon supported peace and called for an end to nuclear weapons (Lark ). In 1988 pro-timber industry workers in the Pacific Northwest formed the Yellow Ribbon Coalition to promote an understanding of their cause--saving their jobs and rural lifestyle from being eliminated as forests become increasingly protected to preserve the habitat of the endangered northern spotted owl. Convoys of 1000 ribbon-decorated log trucks have rallied in Northwest cities, members have tied ribbons to trees and car antennas and have appropriated the ribbon as their solidarity symbol (Strycker 1A, McKenzie C1). In February 1992, several hundred Oregon timber workers wearing yellow ribbons chanted Hey, Hey ESA, please don't take our jobs away, as they came to testify at government hearings on the Endangered Species Act (Durbin A1). Supporters of alleged Mafia leader John Gotti hung yellow ribbons outside his former social club during his Winter 1992 trial (Maykuth E15). While none of these instances reached the same proportion of use as was evident during the Gulf War, together they illustrate that the yellow ribbon had become fairly well disseminated as a support symbol across America by the early 1990s.RIBBON VARIANTS AND SALESDuring the Gulf War the yellow ribbon took many forms. In its most common manifestation, it appeared as a yellow plastic or fabric bow, streamer, banner or strip of ribbon, of varying widths and lengths, that was tied, pinned, folded, wrapped, draped, hung, glued or otherwise attached to or encircled around something else. One of the most common of all yellow ribbon usages was the tying of a bow around a trunk of a tree (Fig. 1). (Fig. …

Dynamic oligopoly behaviour in the airline industry

This paper examines the dynamic interaction between United Airlines and American Airlines on a set of duopoly routes. We estimate quarterly ‘conduct parameters’ (or ‘conjectural variations’) and test constant behaviour Bertrand, Cournot, and collusive models. We also test two regimeswitching models derived from the Green-Porter price war model, one based on reversion to Bertrand behaviour during price wars, the other on reversion to Cournot behaviour. The three constant behaviour models are all rejected. The regime-switching models can both describe the data but the Cournot-based version is preferred.

A Decision Support Framework for Airline Flight Cancellations and Delays

Aircraft shortages occasionally occur during day-to-day airline operation due to factors such as unfavorable weather conditions, mechanical problems, and delays in the schedule of incoming flights. Flight controllers need to respond to such shortages on a real-time basis by delaying or cancelling flights, swapping aircraft among scheduled flights, or requesting the usage of surplus aircraft. The choices undertaken aim at minimizing the losses incurred while retaining an operable flight schedule. In this paper, we represent two network models for aiding flight controllers in this complex decision environment. The models represent an attempt at conceptualizing this important and relatively unstudied problem, and form the basis for an evolving decision support system at United Airlines.

Flight Crew Scheduling

A new crew scheduling optimization system has been developed for United Airlines. The system was developed to permit quick response to schedule changes and to reduce crew scheduling costs. It was designed to work efficiently for both the medium sized problems (300 flights daily) and the very large problems (1,700 flights daily) that United must solve. The system has two main components, a generator and an optimizer. The generator creates pairings (candidate crew trips) which are fed as variables to the optimizer as an elastic embedded set partitioning integer programming problem. The optimizer then seeks to find a set of pairings that covers all of the flight segments exactly once with minimal cost. Once a disjoint solution has been found, the system cycles between the generator and the optimizer to improve it. Savings of $16,000,000 annually in crew scheduling costs have been obtained.

Community consultation following a major air disaster

United Airlines flight 232 crashed at Sioux City, Iowa, on July 19, 1989. The primary rescue workers were the men and women from the 185th Air National Guard Group. Because of the many deaths and massive destruction caused by the crash, a psychiatric consultation team was requested by the U.S. Air Force Surgeon General to assist the Air National Guard personnel. The consultation had four goals: (1) provide consultation to the Air National Guard on the mental health of the community; (2) provide direct psychiatric services on an acute basis and referral for follow-up care, if necessary; (3) train mental health personnel as consultants following disasters; and (4) develop and implement a research plan that would address both the immediate and long-term health consequences of the rescue work. The consultation included community-oriented interventions directed toward reducing the effects of psychological stress on high-risk groups. This paper describes the consultations and the 1-year follow-up.

Distance education futures: Information needs and technology options

Performance + InstructionVolume 30, Issue 10 p. 1-6 Article Distance education futures: Information needs and technology options Alan G. Chute, Alan G. Chute Alan Chute is the manager of the AT&T National Teletraining Center (NTC) in Cincinnati, OH. The NTC is a center for research and development of audio, audiographic, and video teletraining applications. Alan has over 20 years experience as a consultant to educational, government, and business organization on teletraining/teleconferencing system design and implementation.Search for more papers by this authorBurton W. Hancock, Burton W. Hancock Burton Hancock has over 15 years experience as a performance technologist. He is senior manager in the Professional and Organizational Development Department of Ernst & Young. In previous positions, he has designed, developed, and managed the implementation of technology-based training systems and programs for AT&T Sales Education and the University of South Dakota School of Medicine.Search for more papers by this authorLee B. Balthazar, Lee B. Balthazar Lee Balthazar is a senior staff specialist at the United Airlines corporate training facility in Chicago, IL. Prior to United, Lee served as a consultant to AT&T National Teletraining, Ohio, Bell Laboratories, and General Electric.Search for more papers by this author Alan G. Chute, Alan G. Chute Alan Chute is the manager of the AT&T National Teletraining Center (NTC) in Cincinnati, OH. The NTC is a center for research and development of audio, audiographic, and video teletraining applications. Alan has over 20 years experience as a consultant to educational, government, and business organization on teletraining/teleconferencing system design and implementation.Search for more papers by this authorBurton W. Hancock, Burton W. Hancock Burton Hancock has over 15 years experience as a performance technologist. He is senior manager in the Professional and Organizational Development Department of Ernst & Young. In previous positions, he has designed, developed, and managed the implementation of technology-based training systems and programs for AT&T Sales Education and the University of South Dakota School of Medicine.Search for more papers by this authorLee B. Balthazar, Lee B. Balthazar Lee Balthazar is a senior staff specialist at the United Airlines corporate training facility in Chicago, IL. Prior to United, Lee served as a consultant to AT&T National Teletraining, Ohio, Bell Laboratories, and General Electric.Search for more papers by this author First published: November/December 1991 https://doi.org/10.1002/pfi.4170301002Citations: 1 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume30, Issue10November/December 1991Pages 1-6 RelatedInformation

Body Retrieval and Morgue Operation at the Crash of United Flight 232

Abstract On 19 July 1989, United Airlines Flight 232, a wide-bodied DC-10, crash-landed in Sioux City, Iowa, ultimately resulting in 112 deaths. By using the first several hours after the crash to preplan carefully and to walk through the entire body recovery and morgue procedure mentally, the disaster management team was able to process the fatalitics from Flight 232 expeditiously. The team also prepared a rigid system of data management for the morgue, which allowed the staff to collate and process large volumes of information without significant error or mismatched records.

Status Report: An Airline-university Cooperative Pilot Career Program

A descriptive study of the United Airlines--Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Cooperative Agreement in Aviation Flight and Aviation Management was accomplished in order to detail the selection, training, and hiring results of the agreement. This study showed that there have been over 100 SIUC student participates since 1987 in the short and long internships that were provided for in this agreement. The 93 short intemship participants had the following average inteming qualifications: 445 total flight hours, 30.0 multi-engine hours, and a 3.32 grade point average on a 4.0 scale. Furthermore, of the 93 short internships, 41 or 44.1 percent were selected to proceed on to a semester-long internship at various United Airlines Flight operation locations around the nation. Of those SIUC students successfully completing the internship, a total of 19 have been hired by United Airlines as Flight Officers since such hires began in 1989. Most of those hired are worl<ing as Boeing 727 Flight Engineers. Some have already upgraded to Boeing 737 First Officer positions. While the agreement is successful in many ways, the reasons for United not hiring successful long internships should be carefully studied in future research efforts. Also, the characteristics of a successful SIUC long internship (for example, of those hired by United) should be more completely identified by United at the time of employment.

THE MOTIVES AND CONSEQUENCES OF DEBT‐EQUITY SWAPS AND DEFEASANCES: MORE EVIDENCE THAT IT DOES NOT PAY TO MANIPULATE EARNINGS

On February 9,1982, Hammermill Paper registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to swap as many as 400,000 common shares for $13.4 million of the company's 8.07% promissory notes due February 1, 1997. The resulting swap increased Hammermill's 1st quarter earnings by $3.7 million, accounting for more than a third of its earnings for that period. Between February 9 and 10, the market value of Hammermill's equity fell by 4.5%.On January 28, 1985, United Airlines announced that its preceding 4th quarter earnings included a $3 million extraordinary gain from the defeasance of $38 million of outstanding notes, and that earnings for all of 1984 included a defeasance gain of $21.5 million, representing 7.6% of UAL's 1984 net income. Between January 28 and 29, the market value of UAL's equity declined by 4.6%.

The Expert’s Opinion

INTERVIEWEE PROFILE: Dr. Jan Meyer is an associate professor at the College of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. Previously she served as manager of human resources at United Airlines, where she was employed for almost 18 years.