RUSS LYNCH / RLYNCH@STARBULLETIN.COM
CEO Glenn Tilton says United may enter into future joint promotions with Hawaii tourism representatives.
Hawaii market
driving growth at
United Airlines,
its CEO saysThe Chicago-based carrier says
it gets 25 percent of the state's
mainland passenger business
As a market for airline giant United Airlines, Hawaii is getting stronger and performing above the average for United's domestic system, the airline's top executive said yesterday.
Christmas in the Hawaii trade is "looking very good," based on advance bookings and the Thanksgiving holiday experience, said Glenn F. Tilton, chairman, president and chief executive officer of United and its parent UAL Corp.
"One of our best-performing markets is the Pacific" and Hawaii, as the prime domestic Pacific destination, is helping to drive that, Tilton told reporters in a small conference room at Honolulu Airport.
In the U.S. market, Hawaii is well above other destinations in market growth, seats filled per flight and customer satisfaction, he said.
Tilton said he had a good exchange of views in a meeting with Gov. Linda Lingle that lasted a bit more than an hour and he also met with leaders in the Legislature.
United's history has been important to Hawaii's tourism development. Chicago-based United began flying from the mainland to Hawaii on May 1, 1947, and the airline says that today it has about 25 percent of all the passenger business from the mainland.
The growth of business in the Hawaii market has been really strong for United, Tilton said.
"For us, it's a tremendous opportunity to go from strength to strength."
He said United will continue to work with local authorities and organizations to make Hawaii a better place to visit and to market the islands as a destination.
That could include future joint promotions by United and Hawaii tourism representatives. But the impetus for that would have to come from Hawaii as a tourist market, not United as a commercial business working that market, Tilton said.
On a broader scale, Tilton, 55, said his shift from the oil business to an airline was a major change for him.
He had top executive positions with Texaco and was vice chairman of ChevronTexaco Corp. until he joined United in September 2002.
"At Texaco, 90 percent of the employees were not represented by unions. At United it is the opposite," he said.
In the oil business, he was far removed from the workers, sitting in big-city corporate offices while the workers were out in the field, many of them on remote offshore drilling rigs.
In the airline business, he said, he is in contact with employees all the time. On this week's flights, he talked to flight attendants, spent time in the cockpit with the crews flying the planes and talked to as many ground-based employees as he could, Tilton said.
Everyone was positive about the airline and its future and they all recognized the importance of the customer, he said.
Tilton said he expects UAL to come out of bankruptcy in a more positive situation than it has been for years.
Operating improvements are already showing, he said.
"We were bleeding cash. We were closed out of the financial markets. We were the high-cost carrier in the business," Tilton said.
"A crisis really shortens and abbreviates the learning curve," said Tilton, who assumed the top post at United just a couple of months before it went into a bankruptcy reorganization.
Now things are looking up and the airline is very efficient, he said.
United has more than 1,500 employees in Hawaii.
