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WELCOME ABOARD UNITED AIRLINES
United Air Lines is one of the world's largest airlines with 48,000 employees and a fleet of more than 350 aircraft. It is a subsidiary of United Continental Holdings, Inc. formerly, UAL Corporation, with corporate offices in Chicago. United's largest hub is Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. United also has hubs in Washington Dulles International Airport, Denver International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and Narita International Airport near Tokyo. United is a founding member of the Star Alliance, the largest airline alliance in the world, and offers connections to over 1,000 destinations in over 170 countries worldwide. On Sunday, May 2, 2010, the Boards of Directors at Continental Airlines and UAL Corp. approved a stock-swap deal that would combine them into the world's largest airline in revenue passenger miles and second largest in fleet size and destinations after Delta Air Lines. The new airline will take on the United Airlines name, Continental's logo and be based in United's hometown of Chicago. The parent company of the new carrier will be called United Continental Holdings, Inc. United Airlines traces its claim to be the oldest commercial airline in the United States to the Varney Air Lines air mail service of Walter Varney, who also founded Continental Airlines. United was the launch customer of the Boeing 777 and had significant input on its design. It was also the first airline to introduce the twin-jet in commercial service. United adopted a red, white and blue shield logo in 1936, but its use varied widely and was eventually abandoned altogether in the early 1970s. In 1973, the airline commissioned designer Saul Bass to develop a new logo. The "tulip" logo of colored stripes representing overlapping letter "U"s remains in use today with only slight modification. United's grey livery featured the words "Worldwide Service" near the front of the aircraft. The early slogan "The Main Line Airway," emphasizing its signature New York-Chicago-San Francisco route, was replaced in 1965 with "Fly the Friendly Skies." The "friendly skies" tagline was used until 1996. The current slogan and ad campaign since 2004, is "It's time to fly."
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