Vacation Deferral Request 

Richard Lung, Director, Flight Crew Resources

Dear Pilot:

    Year 2000 will be an unprecedented year for United, both in terms of opportunity and challenge.  Pilots are moving up at record rates.  For example, in the latest rounds of bids, we had four new captains with less than three years seniority!  We could see this trend continuing in 2000, as transition and new hire training is projected to increase to 4500-5000 pilots next year compared to 3000-3500 this year.

    These promotions are driven by 450 pilot retirements, continued sharp growth of 20 aircraft in our fleet driving our domestic expansion, and recovery of our B747-400 Pacific operations.  We are planning new LAX-MEL service starting December, new SFO-SHA service in the spring, and possibly a third Pacific operation also next year.  Each of these routes results in roughly 20 B747-400 captain and 35-55 first officer positions, compared to 6 captain and 6 first officer positions for domestic flying.  Our pilot work force is projected to grow by over 500 pilots as we plan to hire over 1,000 new pilots, with over 10,500 pilots by year end 2000 and a fleet of 615 aircraft.

    To meet these needs, we would like to solicit those pilots who would like to defer some or all of their currently assigned February, March and April vacation and any unassigned vacation remaining after the January 60 day assignments are complete.  If we still fall short after this solicitation, we may offer additional rounds of vacation deferrals.

    This deferral will be in accordance with Section 11 -F of the 1994 Pilot Contract and Letter 96-13.  We are working hard at balancing the required block hours to fly with what vacation we can give.

    Below is the timeline for the vacation deferral process:

            Oct. 7 - Begin Submission of your previously ASSIGNED Feb, Mar, and Apr 2000 vacation

            Nov. 2 - Begin Submission of remaining UNASSIGNED vacation for deferral.

            Nov. 17 - 1200 ORD TIME: CLOSE OUT OF VACATION DEFERRALS

            Nov. 22 - Confirmation Letters Sent of all Awarded Deferrals (Awards will honor seniority)

    You can submit a request by completing DIS*31190 in Unimatic.  Tab to complete the fields and transmit after the ".EM." at the end of the page.  The page will be automatically sent to WHQCM for processing.  If you cannot access Unimatic, fill in the attached form and send it to your domicile administration.  They will in turn complete DIS*31190 for you.  DO NOT submit under both methods because this will create confusion should the two not agree.  Please be aware that you can defer more than one split only to the extent that both this year and next year's vacation can be assigned as legal splits (Letter 96-13).  Therefore, the total number of splits for both years must remain the same.  A deferral cannot create splits.  Any questions can be directed to your domicile.

    Again, we will be collecting requests through noon ORD domicile time on Wednesday, November 17, 1999.  At that time, all ASSIGNED and UNASSIGNED vacation deferral requests will be combined and awarded in seniority order based on operational needs.  If your request for deferral is accepted, your Pilot Data File will be updated and your domicile will place a notification in your mailbox.

    Thank you for your time and helping us meet a very aggressive 2000 flying plan.

Richard Lung, 

Director, Flight Crew Resources