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Dear All,

I am frankly somewhat shocked to be able to give you all this good news, as I never expected it to occur:

United has decided to add back gluten-free meals to their special meal offerings. Why is this important? About 3 yrs ago they discontinued g-f meals because, as they told me, they viewed it as too much of an expense and b/c demand wasn't high enough. Supposedly, they use their own catering service rather than a higher volume service (HOST?), unlike other airlines, and supposedly, g-f meals were going to waste. And a bunch of other excuses like that.

Anyway, months ago, with the help of many of you, I sent a series of letters to all of their top management, including direct quotes from you as to how United's handling of CD has affected your choice of airline, bad experiences you had with United's g-f meals before they d/c'd them 3 yrs ago, good experiences you had with other airlines, etc. All in all, about 10 typed pages of quotes.

I lucked upon my letters finding their way from the CEO to a woman in customer service whose daugther has CD, and who, reading between the lines of her letters to me, was pleased that someone from the outside was taking on United's mgmt regarding this issue (as she, obviously, couldn't do much herself).

Months went by and I heard nothing except the usual "trust us, we care and are taking your comments seriously" lines. But yesterday I got a letter from her, cc'd to the worldwide director of catering and also their executive chef, in which she says:

"... you continued to challenge us to sit up and take notice of how grave a health threat this disease has become and you gave us an awareness of the growing number of people that are affected by it... I assured you that your feedback would not go unheard and that we would use your valuable information wisely...as a result, we have had the opportunity to reevaluate our decisions...your persistence has paid off and ... we are reinstating the "Gluten Free" meal choice effective January 6, 2005...You once mentioned that the only thing that was preventing you from flying with United was that we no longer offered a "Gluten Free" meal...we hope this will encourage you to choose United for all your future travel needs."

I realize this is hardly as momentous as the Labeling law passing or a cure for CD. But it shows that even an enormous corporation (and in bankruptcy proceedings at that) can be "educated" to the point that they will sit up and notice. Let's keep up the work with other companies, restaurant chains, etc etc as all of you are doing. It is working and we are being heard.

Finally, if you wish, consider sending a note to the person at United who helped make this happen. At one point I told her about the power of this list-serve, both to bring United business but also to keep Celiacs from flying with them. It would be great for her to get a few notes confirming that this decision really is something that will benefit United, and also to thank her.

She's Anne McFadden, Customer Relations, WHQPW-AKM, United Worldwide Headquarters, PO Box 66100, Chicago, IL 60666

david

*Support summarization of posts, reply to the SENDER not the Celiac List*