Flying the gay-friendly skies.

Several airlines offer domestic-partner benefits and soar into a nose-to-nose battle to prove which carrier can take you higher

Airlines are like wild antelope. When one bolts they all do. It's always a race to prove who's the least expensive, who's the roomiest, and, now, who's the gayest of them all. With gay men and lesbians spending $17 billion a year on travel, the stampede for this latest title is not surprising.

"Demographics are what make gay and lesbian travelers so important to airlines,' says Billy Kolber-Stuart, editor of the gay travel newsletter "Out & About" "Because many of us don't have children, a greater percentage of our discretionary income is available for travel. On top of that, we are more able to travel at off_ peak times."

It was no doubt that with this partly in mind, United Airlines upped the ante in the battle for the gay market on July 30 when it became the first U.S carrier to offer domestic-partner benefits to its employees. Just six days after, American Airlines made the same announcement. And one day later a memo circulated through the U.S. Airways headquarters in Arlington, Va, announcing that it would be the third major U.S. carrier to offer the benefits. Rumors of similar announcements from other major carriers were spreading throughout the industry at press time. Who will be next? Continental, Northwest, or maybe even traditionally conservative Delta?

So which is the gayest airline of them all? Prior to July 30, it appeared American had the others beat, hands down. The "official airline" of high-profile gay groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and Parents, Family, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, many lesbian and gay (ravelers agree the airline is "something special in the air."

United, on the other hand, has been the subject of a nationwide boycott sparked by its opposition to a 1997 San Francisco ordinance requiring companies doing business with the city to offer domestic-partner benefits. In fact, all major airlines joined in a lawsuit against the San Francisco ordinance, but because United's lease was the first to expire at the city's airport, only it attracted the attention and the boycott.

United's sudden change of heart, which came only after a federal court ordered the airline to offer the benefits, "took us completely by surprise," says Jeff Sheehy, coauthor of the ordinance and founder of Equal Benefits Advocates, which spearheaded the United boycott. "It's been such a long fight," he adds. "I never felt like it was going to happen."

Despite the policy change United--together with all other major airlines--promises to continue its appeal of the federal court ruling upholding the San Francisco ordinance. Nevertheless, it appears the airline, which has more than 20 sales representatives who focus on gay consumers, is taking advantage of its trailblazing position on domestic partnerships by hitting American Airlines where it has reigned supreme with the gay organizations.

On the Monday following the July 30 announcement, United reps began faxing dozens of gay groups informing them of the policy change and pitching their airline as an ideal sponsor, according to a source at a rival airline. United has had prior relationships with gay events and organizations, but some groups, including Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National AIDS Memorial Grove, severed ties as part of the boycott.

"We have an established track record in marketing to the gay community, and we want to mend any relationships that might have been harmed by the litigation," says Matthew Triaca, a spokesman for United. "Suffice it to say, we will continue to aggressively market to [gays and lesbians]."

Sponsorship is probably the best way for United to mend those relationships, says Jim Andrews, editor of the Chicago. based IEG Sponsorship Report. "It's easy to buy an ad that says, `We support the gay community,' but sponsorship is a more demonstrative way to lend support to a cause important to your customers," he says. "When people see a company backing a cause they care about, it really personalizes the message the company is trying to get across."

Sponsors, however, can face backlash from people who oppose the cause being funded. Conservative Christians had met with Robert Crandall, then-CEO of American's parent company, AMR Corp., in 1998 in an unsuccessful attempt to get the airline to drop its sponsorship of gay events. Some Evangelicals have mounted a boycott campaign against American since then. But as industry leaders continue to offer domestic-partner benefits, the effectiveness of such a campaign, never considered widely successful, is likely to wane even further.

Threat of a boycott did not cause American Airlines, which has a five-year-old gay-specific marketing team, to waver in its support of gay causes. In fact, in a letter written last summer to the airline's gay employee group, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Employees at AMR, also known as GLEAM, Crandall reiterated that sponsorship means business. "American does not intend to sever relations with the gay community or the organizations which represent it," he wrote. "Nor do we intend to moderate our efforts to sell effectively to every customer constituency."

Robbin Burr, who heads American's gay marketing team and is cochairwoman of GLEAM, says the flurry of do. mestic-partner announcements put her "in the best mood I've been in in a long time." She's also not worried about the heightened competition for the gay market. "Good sales and marketing is based on good relationships, and we have good relationships with the organizations and associations [we have] worked with over the past few years," she says. Prior to July 30, Burr says, many gay organizations asked if American offered domestic-partner benefits. And although the answer was always no, she says, "Most of our customers were very acutely aware that you [have to] work within your industry."

For gays, working within the airline industry, which is notoriously conservative, can be difficult. Many of those among the companies' upper ranks are former pilots who also happen to be former military officers. Unlike the entertainment, media, and high-tech industries, which in the 1990s were the first major businesses to provide partner benefits, most airlines do not have openly gay and lesbian employees in senior positions.

"The push from the employees has been from the lower levels--and they don't always have management's ear," Kolber-Stuart says. "United was in a really tough spot. But for airlines like United and American, which have been marketing to and profiting from the gay community for years, this is a long time coming."

While there are certainly public relations and marketing advantages to all three airlines' announcements, the real .boon is to employees. Gay employee groups at both United and American have been lobbying upper management for years to offer equitable partner benefits. "We anticipated that the decision would be made, but we were a bit shocked in terms of the time frame," says Nick Morse, executive director of United's gay employee group, United in Pride. "We sent them a hefty proposal, and they seemed to follow our recommendations to a tee."

Gideonse is a former reporter for Newsweek.