United Airlines has
          introduced a free new flight paging service that will
          proactively inform customers of flight delays,
          cancellations and gate information via e-mail. Messages
          can be automatically sent to a customer’s personal
          computer, text-enabled cellular phone or alphanumeric
          pager, enabling travelers with wireless capabilities to stay
          abreast of schedule changes even when they are on the
          road.
Customers wishing to take advantage of the new service
          simply complete a paging request form at the airline’s
          Web site, www.ual.com, whenever they book or change
          a reservation for United, United Shuttle?’ or United
          Express?’ flights. Individual users can tailor the service to
          suit their preferences by choosing different options on the
          form, such as whether to be alerted when a flight is
          delayed more than 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. Gate
          information can be provided within one to four hours of
          the scheduled arrival or departure time.
The flight paging functionality is an extension of the
          wireless strategy that United inaugurated when it became
          the first airline to commit to offering flight status
          information on the 3Com Palm VII™ Connected
          Organizer, which began beta testing with customers last
          May. That partnership will enable users of the Palm VII,
          the first handheld solution for out-of-the-box wireless
          Internet access, to retrieve current-day arrival and
          departure information on United flights via a direct
          connection to United’s reservations system.
“We recognize that our mobile customers may not
          require access to all of our Web site content when they
          are on the road, but they may require specialized services
          tailored to their particular wireless device,” said Rick
          Collins, Director of Internet Marketing for United
          Airlines. “We have begun to address those needs with
          the Palm VII partnership and our new flight paging
          service, and we are currently working with our customers
          to determine what other services they would like
          available on the wireless platform.”
Customers who are unsure about the capabilities of their
          pager or cellular phone can use the test pager option on
          the registration screen to determine whether their device
          can accept messages from the flight paging service.
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