Customers, public officials, creditors and United Airlines employees greeted the company’s plan to emerge from bankruptcy with everything from optimism and cheers to yawns and surprise Wednesday.
“This is a step out of the past and into the future,” said Marc Champion, a pilot who has worked for the Chicago-based carrier for 20 years. “It has been three long years, and this is the foundation of United’s future.”
United, which maintains a hub at Denver International Airport and is DIA’s largest carrier, employs about 5,400 people at the airport. Another 17,000 jobs are dependent on the carrier, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.
All those jobs produce a $911 million annual salary impact on the metro-area economy. Said Clark: “It’s a whopper.”
He called the bankruptcy plan “about as good economic news as you can get. It is just about as good as a large company landing in your midst.”
United’s survival is important to Colorado’s tourism industry, said Peter Meersman, chairman of the Colorado Tourism Office. Though other carriers would eventually take over United’s DIA gates if it liquidated, that wouldn’t happen right away. “Meanwhile, we would feel a loss in tourism and tax dollars,” Meersman said.
United’s employees have swallowed pay cuts and pension losses as the company struggles to emerge from bankruptcy.
“You have to recognize that this is the result of the sacrifice and hard work of the employees,” said Mayor John Hickenlooper. “In the end, it is the rank and file who find ways to accomplish their tasks with less resources.”
The reorganization plan would give unsecured creditors such as AmeriVest Properties Inc. between 4 cents and 7 cents on the dollar. United owes the Denver real-estate investment trust company $478,706 for leased office space that it occupied before bankruptcy.
“We are in that great group of unsecured creditors, and it has been a long, protracted kind of exercise. If something is happening, that is good news,” said John Greenman, AmeriVest chief investment officer.
While the filing of United’s long-awaited reorganization plan is a major step for the carrier, the move barely caused a ripple among the airline’s customers at DIA.
Many said they were unaware that United was still operating under Chapter 11 protection. DIA’s dominant carrier filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 9, 2002.
“I didn’t know they were still bankrupt, because they’re still functioning,” said Littleton resident Don Sato, 45. Sato was at DIA to pick up his uncle, who arrived from New York on United.
Bill Robinson, a truck driver from Cleveland, also was surprised to hear that United finally filed its reorganization plan Wednesday.
“It’s a sign that better times may be coming,” said Robinson, 28, who had been in Denver for a business trip and was headed to Los Angeles via United. “It’s important for them to emerge because they’re one of the major carriers in the nation.”
Evergreen-based aviation analyst Mike Boyd said many customers may not know that United is in bankruptcy because the carrier’s customer service hasn’t been gutted.
“If there’s a morale problem at United Airlines, the employees aren’t telling people about it,” Boyd said. “Their service is at the cutting edge of excellence.”
San Diego resident Sharon Flemens said she is aware that United is still mired in bankruptcy because her ex-husband works for the carrier.
Flemens called United’s filing “encouraging.”
“It shows that people weren’t afraid to fly United and continued to show support for the airline,” said Flemens, 56.
Staff writer Andy Vuong can be reached at 303-820-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-820-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
