Q&A: How United sees US Airways and Continental's role in Star Alliance

CHICAGO -- USA TODAY's Ben Mutzabaugh recently sat down with Graham Atkinson, the president of United Airlines' Mileage Plus frequent-flier program. Atkinson also agreed to take questions submitted by Today in the Sky readers.

Among the topics from today's installment, Atkinson addresses US Airways' future status in the Star Alliance, and how he gets customer feedback. This is the second part of our Q&A session; come back Tuesday for our final installment.

Ben Mutzabaugh:One of my favorite promotions in recent years has been the reduced-mileage award tickets for short flights (typically under 700 miles or so). Those short-flight awards could be redeemed for just 15,000 miles, instead of the normal 25,000. I've used that before on the Washington-Toronto route, which is typically an expensive flight even though it's a short one. You and American, for example, have each offered this several times in recent years. Will we see more of these types of promotions going forward?

Atkinson:I think maybe what this period will teach us all is that, — even in a network and a successful business like ours, where we operate with load factors in the 80s on a year-round basis — there are still pockets of business. I don't know whether it's the Tuesday evening flight to Iowa City or as you say – your Thursday morning flight to Toronto.

As we build our capabilities to do targeted promotions, (that adds) real value to (some segments of the market. It) increases this sort of value proposition as seen by the person who is making a choice between one program and the other. You need the technology to be able to do that, flexibly. And that's one of the things we're looking at in terms of future capabilities in the program.

Mutzabaugh:I could probably spend the rest of the day on my own frequent-flier questions, but I'd like to shift to questions that have been submitted by our readers. We won't have time for all of them, but let's see how many we can get through. And, let me tell you, our readers' questions show some very intimate knowledge of United's Mileage Plus program.