Continental's Monumental Incompetence or Incontinental

As you know, I recently travelled to New York City for work. Because of the location of my accomodations, it only made sense for me to fly into Newark-Liberty International Airport. Continental Airlines holds a monopoly on non-stop flights from Nashville to Newark, and thus I had no reasonable option other than to fly Continental. It was a small scale disaster.

On March 14, 2007 I arrived at the Nashville International Airport for my 4:15 PM flight. I proceeded directly to my gate, where a sign indicated that the flight was delayed - nothing more, nothing less. I asked the gate agent what time the new departure would be, and he replied that it would be 5:35 PM. Being unfamiliar with (and thus not very trusting of) this airline, I bought a barbecue sandwich and waited in the gate area for further news. In the mean time I phoned the person I was meeting at Newark and let him know that I would be late.

At around 4:00PM, the gate agent announced that the captain had decided to board the flight at 4:30PM. Promptly at 4:35PM, board we did. I assume that everyone who held a boarding pass got on the flight, even though many had been told that we wouldn't be departing for another hour.

After boarding the plane, the captain's voice came over the speaker system and explained that one of the various control centers (I think it was Newark's ground control) had forced the delay by assigning us a late wheels-up time in order to manage the traffic in Newark. He informed us that, in spite of this late time and in spite of the previously announced delay, that we would be pulling away from the gate immediately in the hope that we would get some sort of reprieve for being ready to go. We didn't, and we sat on the ground, fifty yards away from the gate, for an hour and fifteen minutes.

I thought that was poor judgment. I had no idea.

On Sunday, March 18 I arrived at Newark-Liberty International for my 2:20PM return flight to Nashville at 10:30AM because of a friend's 1:00PM flight to Atlanta. I went to the gate, picked up a book, and awaited the pre-flight activity at the gate area.

At about 1:30, I overheard a conversation that a gentleman near me was holding on his mobile phone. I gradually gathered that he was speaking with a representative of Continental Airlines regarding his flight that had just been cancelled. I then further calculated that he was confused about the status of his flight, as a Continental Customer Service [sic] automated call system had called his mobile phone to notify him of his flight's cancellation, while the aiport information screens and the screen at his gate indicated that his flight was on time. I then realized that he was trying to get to Nashville.

Gradually, all around me, passengers began to pick up their phones. Tones of voice became more heated, and the phrase "I realize that this is not personally your fault, but" became a cliché. I received no phone call, as I hadn't provided my mobile number (for this reason) to the airline and I knew that I would be early to the airport. I assumed that the monitors and signs in the airport would update the status of the flight, and that I could always ask a gate agent if something was in question. Alas, 1:50 arrived and the sign at the gate insisted:

3134 - Nashville
2:20 PM
ON TIME

The "Continental Departures" screen indicated the same thing.



To make matters worse, the kiosk in front of the sign where a gate agent would normally answer questions and solve problems stood empty, as it had been since I arrived at the gate two-and-one-half hours earlier.

Finally, at 2:18pm a Continental employee arrived. She did not, however, address our concerns or answer our questions. She simply said, "Attention in the gate area. Continental Flight 3134 with service to Nashville has been cancelled. Please see a representative at Customer Service near gate 103 for assistance." When asked why we were just being informed about the cancellation when we could have been standing in line for 45 minutes finding a way home, her response was short and to the point: "I don't know anything about the Nashville flight other than that is cancelled. This gate is servicing the flight to Grand Rapids and you will have to go to customer service for questions regarding Nashville.

When I arrived at customer service this was the view ahead of me.



This was the view behind me.



After clearing the wall and making my way out of the concourse and into the customer service area proper, this was the view.



Two - two - representatives present at the customer service area to help resolve the problems that existed because Continental doesn't watch the weather report. Wow, guys! Did you think maybe you might need some more help on a weekend when people had been stranded in town since Friday?

After waiting in line around ninety minutes, I arrived at the front only to be informed that the earliest they could get me out was 7:15pm the following night. Of course, Continental also claimed that this was "beyond their control" and thus would be providing no meals or accomodations for me. Bear in mind here that the weather event was on Thursday night and Friday. This was Sunday.

Judging by their record so far in my travels with Continental, I didn't anticipate any argument involving logic, good sense, or customer satisfaction to resonate with any of the airline employees. I accepted the 7:15 flight the next day, called Oob, and went to find my luggage.

The baggage claim level looked like the aftermath of a first responder's drill. Bags lay on any available real estate, with no apparent rhyme or reason as to their grouping or location. Stranded passengers wandered through mob after mob of bags, looking for their belongings with little hope. Ocassionally, one might run across an airline representative who advised them of the location of their bags with their nose in the air. One agent responded to a reasonable complaint about our plight with the forceful retort, "We can't land on ice, sir." No shit, Patricia. You can't. You can watch the weather. You can plan for outages by putting the right crews and the right planes in the right cities. You can inform your passengers of their flight status by way of visual cues and human communication within a reasonable period of time following your knowledge of operational changes. You can station security personnel in the baggage claim area to prevent bags from being stolen. You can provide me with a customer service representative that doesn't give me lip or deny any culpability for the promise you have broken. But you don't. "We can't land on ice, sir." Southwest Airlines you most certainly aren't.

These pictures don't begin to do it any justice, but here is the baggage claim area in Concourse C of Newark-Liberty International Airport around 4:30PM on Sunday March 18.








The woman in white here is the wife of the chancellor of a major university in Nashville. She didn't stay as calm as I did, and I don't blame her one bit.

The good news is that Oob was right there to pick me up. She took me to dinner in Hoboken, where I learned about the best view of New York City ever. Again, the picture doesn't even come close. Then she gave me a couch to sleep on, a place to shower, a toothbrush (Continental kept that too), a ride back to the airport, a tour of her part of the world, and great company to tide me over.



On Monday, little changed about Continental's service. At the very least, however, their planes were moving. After failing to get on the 2:20 flight that day, I did make the early evening flight and finally arrived home twentysomething hours after my original planned return.



I have to fly Continental again next week, and I'm not looking forward to it. Their atrocious service is a prime example of why the legacy airlines are losing money while the airlines that provide great service at a low price are in the black. Thanks Continental. Thanks for reminding me why I fly Southwest and JetBlue (yes, JetBlue!).