Randy,

The Live discussion really got lively (in a fantastic way) after the moderated session ended. Is there anyway possible to get that dialogue posted as part of the transcript?

Would be a great addition to the transcript.

William

I second the motion. Jim is the best guest that you have had so far.

And what a great sport. He stayed on and on, and did his best with all the fast balls we were throwing.

Jim Davidovich in the "unofficial" session did not dodge ONE question as I recall, and man, for a high level executive, that was great and appreciated by all there. A fun night. RANDY .. please do your darndest to ask these 2 great guests back SOOON!

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~ Glen ~

N.B. : My time zones are hard to work out backwards, but by my recollection, Jim was on there answering questions 2 hours and 45 minutes after the official chat session started - please correct me if I messed up time zones, but it seemed to go on for that long?

Jim is a REGULAR visitor to FT he indicated, and certainly recognised several of us by user name etc. Indicated quite a few senior UA staff visit FT. That's a testament to where Randy has positioned this Bulletin Board in the industry - well done, if the airlines make it a point to regularly read the user feedback and discussion.

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~ Glen ~

Do they read just the UA forum, or do they also read The Coupon Connection and The Buzz as well?

I will make this happen for you as i think the 'after hours' are pretty cool conversations. I think we can even put prior sessions up. I think if all members give these folks a chance to come out and chat rather than trying to pin them on an issue, we'll be great with all sessions. Always respect that more likely than not, they are being advised not to come on these types of chats because they are not sancioned nor supported by the programs they represent.

I'm pleased with the progress, though I do get dissapointed at those occasional critics that don't appreciate these opportunities to actually come in real contact with the decision makers.

Look for the additional transcripts......

Thanks again Randy! The last two, Northwest, and this UA chat last night were substantially improved over the earlier chats! Very fast learning curve! Extremely interesting and useful! Your efforts are very much appreciated. Please keep up the great work!

Randy,

Thanks for your quick response to my request. I think most of the FT'ers who took part in the "post-moderated-chat" found it to be more valuable than the moderated portion.

Of course, we need to learn how to stop typing and let him answer the questions...

Thanks again Randy,

William

Randy, what you have said is a valid point, however, getting back to the Christine Pierce and Kevin Pinto chat,DL knew exactly what type of arena they were entering with the live chat and avoided answering every important issue that concerned us.

With DL, the 2 main issues that we all wanted to speak about (the changes in the 2001 Skymiles program that took away the SWU's on top of DL having LUser fares, and "Simply Good Business") were never addressed by our guests properly. Yes, we wanted to pin them down, for that exact reason. There was no way to ask followup questions and everyone left that chat totally frustrated.

If they had stayed around for a live session after the moderated part was done, and really answered our valid complaints, we would have had more respect for those 2 individuals and DL as a company.

It was good to see that Jim hung out and opened up.

Personally, I felt the formal session was realy quite uniformative/uneventful/square, but lots credit goes to you for just getting these guys to the plate in the first place.

I would have liked to have seen some headway/positive response on issues like:

F & C service cuts;
FA's in first over Elites;
Going above and beyond in some way for 1K's/Elites...

Some sort of acknowledgement, like "hey, we realize we have some competitive disadvantages here, but here's what we're going to do to compensate for our good customers to show that we care".

Maybe that's too much in that these are areas that just aren't going to change or get any better?

Jim was really great. He took a solid, fair approach, and relly didn't dodge anything.

In hidesight, I too would have liked to see a discussion on:

But no one asked him about any of these issues!
More reason to bring him back for another chat soon!

I asked. He didn't answer.