mr. tilton. we read it -- >> the chair recognizes you -- thank you, mr. tilton. mr. smizeg? >> this merger is good for employees, consumers, and competition. the volatility of the airline industry has had harsh affects unemployment. before this continental had 54,000 employees. today, despite being the only brownson's 9/11 a, we have talked less than 41,000 employees and have lost $1 billion. today we have about 46,000 employees. after reemerge, our employees wiil be part of a larger, financially stronger and more geographically diverse carrier. this carrier will be better able to compete in he global marketplace. because of how little we overlap, the merger will have minimal effect on the jobs of front-line employees. we are committed to continuing cooperative labor relations, integrating your work forces in a fair and equitable mmnner, negotiating contracts withhthh union that are fair to employees and the company. united has two union board members. those will continue after the merger. the merger will enable us to continue to provide service to small communities. many of

mr. tilton should fly to moscow and sit down with the russians and said when you broke up the soviet union, it has such scale economies in not only did the commercial aviation, but you broken up with the silly notion that while you would not have the scale economies, competition in its innovation would greatly offset the dea that you hadd many smaller companies. again it comes back to a factual points. if the scale economies, which is the synergyyclaim that they are making is really there, which no one else has found, great. if they are not, -- this is a factual question that objective people can sort through fairly3 >> the fact is united already did go bankrupt and they are still here. >> there is almost a perfect negative correlation. >> i appreciate that. i know they did receive government taxpayer dollars right after september 11. i know you talked about the short training woold have prevented or would have full assault, and i conccr that the legacy care seacarriers hava great job with training. i want to see the same commitment which regional carriers. not all have been efficient, but