United Air plans to lay off 1,016 employees, or nearly a third of its corporate staff, starting next week.

It has a worldwide direct sales force of over 60,000 in addition to 750 corporate staff.

Its corporate staff of 1,000 would shrink by 150 positions.

The plan will scale back the corporate staff to 50 people, from 250, by 1994.

He became vice chairman last summer, in charge of strategy and the corporate staff.

A corporate staff is no more, or less, important than a line organization group.

The corporate staff was slashed from 4,000 to 1,000, and later to 400.

He has a slim corporate staff of 20, and fields questions from the press himself.

"I spent six months interviewing everyone on the corporate staff," he recalls.

He works out of a small office in a Charlotte shopping center, with fewer than 24 people on the corporate staff.