Member Spotlight: United Airlines Flexes Economic Muscle at SFO

United Airlines recently held its SFO Family Day to show off its United San Francisco maintenance facility that includes 15 buildings on 144 acres, where 2,144 United employees work. In the last two years, United added about 300 employees at the SFO maintenance base. United President Scott Kirby and United California Regional President Janet Lamkin, who serves on the Bay Area Council Executive Committee, headlined the event, which was attended by thousands of employees and their families.

“We have such an incredible future here ahead of us. This is going to be the No. 1 airline in the world,” Kirby said. “We’re making incredible progress on being a team that works together and fulfills the potential and opportunity that we all know that United Airlines has. Here in San Francisco, this is a crown jewel for United Airlines. It’s important not only to United Airlines. It’s important to the economy here in San Francisco. As strong and robust as this (Bay Area) economy is, being able to give people connections to 100 destinations around the world— over 30 international destinations — and having 14,000 people employed here in the local community, is critical to the underpinning and support for all the things happening in Silicon Valley and across the bay in San Francisco.”

“In serving the Bay Area’s largest companies, if we didn’t have the scale and abilities that we have to go to the places we go to, that would impact their ability to grow,” Lamkin said. She also highlighted United’s service initiatives in smaller California cities to provide greater air connections from Fresno, Santa Rosa and similar markets to United’s hub cities. The airline recently said it will begin flying from Santa Rosa to its hub in Denver, starting on March 8.