United recently finalized three major corporate contracts worth $130 million over the next five years, which will go a long way to help the airline's revenues as it struggles to win financing and emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

It typically takes months of negotiations to conclude major corporate contracts, but Graham Atkinson, senior VP-worldwide sales and alliances, told employees in a message that his team inked the three deals in the last few weeks. "I think each of these speaks volumes, really, for the credibility that the company continues to build with some very discriminating travel buyers," he said. "These people have a lot of options; they're very focused on procurement, and they don't make these decisions lightly."

Because the agreements are confidential, Atkinson would not name the three corporations that inked the deals with United. However, The DAILY has learned that one is a brand-new account for the airline and one is the renewal of a long-standing corporate relationship. The third is a global Star Alliance deal with ChevronTexaco, where United CEO Glenn Tilton previously worked as a top executive.

ChevronTexaco signed a five-year deal for the Star Corporate Plus program, which lets corporations contact the sales teams of any Star member carriers to work out a plan "that takes advantage of the alliance's collective network and service benefits and allows them to book and manage corporate travel seamlessly." Star also touts the single point of contact for the company, one agreement and one report that covers all travel on Star partners.

Atkinson reported he recently visited Denver and Los Angeles and participated in two of the airline's regular "customer advisory group meetings," where the airline invites top corporate customers to provide feedback on the product. "People are giving us really very high marks for the execution on the front line," Atkinson said. "It was very heartening to hear the fact that, despite everything we are going through internally, their level of satisfaction is so high."