United Airlines to cut some management positions

"While we don’t have an exact figure now, a small number of our management team will be affected by reductions," said spokeswoman Megan McCarthy in a statement.

However, frontline employees, which include pilots, flight attendants, customer-service and gate agents, would not be affected by the impending changes, she said.

The No.3 U.S. airline by passenger traffic is increasing efforts to match margins of No.2 Delta Air Lines Inc .

United said in October cheap airfares and higher wages from new contracts would squeeze its results in the fall, making it difficult to be as profitable as competitors.

Bloomberg earlier reported the staffing cuts.

(This story has been refiled to correct attribution in paragraphs 2-3 to spokeswoman from memo.)

(Reporting by Vishaka George in Bengaluru and Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)