"I've heard from many of you in the past few weeks and I know you're eager to return to travel — especially around the holidays. Many of you have asked if you can book with confidence on United this holiday season. And the short answer is, yes you can!

That's because we've taken a unique approach to the complexity of rebuilding an airline in the midst of a pandemic:

• After dramatically cutting our schedule at the start of the pandemic, we knew it would be really hard to try and bring it all back at once. That's why we gradually added flights over time. Our North Star in this recovery is making sure we do the right thing for customers and if that means sacrificing some possible short-term profits to ensure a reliable operation, then so be it
• Instead of furloughing pilots, we were the only airline that negotiated a deal with our union that kept 100% of our pilots employed and ready to fly as the recovery gets underway. That's allowed us to avoid the staffing shortages
• The way we've run our operation has had an impact on the environment on board our aircraft. I'm so proud of our Flight Attendants and the job they've done to de-escalate the small number of situations where bad behaviors occur — we now have less than one mask incident per 100,000 passengers, down over 50% since the start of the year
• We continued to invest in technology to make travel easier for customers. The United App and United.com has everything you need to get ready, including features for verifying your testing and vaccine records before you get to the airport, and easy ways to see, use or combine travel credits to book your next flight. If things don't go as scheduled, you can talk or chat with our agents live on your phone with Agent on Demand and you can rest easy as our Connection Saver Tool helps thousands of people make tight connections every day
• We eliminated policies that historically got in the way of delivering great service — we got rid of change fees forever, as just one example
• We successfully completed our vaccine requirements early, before there was a government directive. I know that some don't support vaccine requirements, including some of our people and some of you receiving this note. But at United, we did it because we knew it was the right thing to do from a safety perspective, and as an airline, that's our highest priority. This vaccine requirement issue is now in the rear-view mirror for us and allows us to focus on taking care of our customers
• In our airports and on board our aircraft, our employees are amazing and have taken customer service to an entirely new level — we see that in our customer data, but I hope you see it on board when you fly because that's our real measure of success. Our people are proud of our airline and they want to deliver for you

United saw the pandemic as an opportunity to change for the better and our team is working hard to make that happen. We won't be perfect and winter weather always impacts some flights, but the bottom line is that our team is ready and eager to welcome you back this holiday season and beyond. We ramped up our December schedule with extra trips to sun and ski destinations, announced the largest transatlantic expansion in our history, and by next Spring, we'll offer 22 flights per day to London."