Remembering Continental Airlines

Old Feb 29th, 2012, 04:41 AM
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Remembering Continental Airlines

With the merger of Continental and United, last flight operated as a CO flight will take place on March 2, at 11:59p Mountain Standard Time as CO1267 PHX-CLE. 4 minutes prior, CO6 will depart NRT on March 3, at 3:55p Japan Time for IAH - that will be the last CO flight in the air.

Flights departing after those may still be listed as CO on your itinerary, but internally they're UA flights.

Personally, CO is the top airline I've flown in terms of both segments (81, about 20%) and miles (230K, about 31%). And this is just for mainline, and does not include regionals.

My first flight was in August 1983 for IAH-SFO. Most recent was GUM-HKG last September. Most significantly, I've flown EWR-HKG seven times and HKG-EWR three times (which were for some time longest twin-engine non-stop flights in the world). And I've flown in all their current aircraft types: 735, 73G, 738, 739, 739ER, 752, 753, 762, 764 and 777.

Maybe this is a good time for others to share their CO experience.
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Old Feb 29th, 2012, 06:18 AM
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The only time I've ever flown CO was a flight from my 'local' regional airport to Hawaii, way back in the mid-1970s. I remember asking if my then 6-7 year old son could see the cockpit, and the pilot was happy to show it off. I don't recall what type of plane we flew. This was one of my very first flights ever, so I certainly had no status with CO.

I've been with UA for many years, having gotten a frequent flier number with them in about 1990. I've now done over a million miles with UA. My 'home' airport is ORD, which is a major UA hub.
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Old Feb 29th, 2012, 08:19 AM
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Hate to see CO disappear. Since I've lived in the Houston area for most of my life, I am very familiar with this airline. I have several friends who have worked for CO or have spouses that worked for CO.

Haven't flown with them in awhile, however. I didn't like their seat arrangement and didn't like the fact that you had to go thru Newark on the way to Frankfurt.

DH still has enough FF miles with CO to get a RT domestic ticket. I guess we should try to use them soon.
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Old Feb 29th, 2012, 08:31 AM
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Betty - CO has been flying IAH-FRA for a while now. Started soon after they switched from Skyteam to *A.
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Old Feb 29th, 2012, 10:41 AM
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We've been flying AA from IAH to FRA for probably 8 yrs now and use FF miles for upgrades to Biz Class. Even when flying Coach, AA has 2 seats on the side which we prefer.
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Old Feb 29th, 2012, 06:11 PM
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I'm afraid I don't have such great memories of CO. I do have a very vivid memory of one flight - Denver (old Denver airport) to Minneapolis. Here is my journal entry: "Knowing that it was the plane coming down to meet the beer, rather than the beer in the cup rising to hit the ceiling made the image of the beer flowing across the overhead bins all the more hypnotic." That was the biggest air pocket I've ever experienced.
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Old Feb 29th, 2012, 08:14 PM
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My entire CO experience is: LAX-HOU-PIT-HOU-LAX, last May, and LAS-PIT in December. My first OnePass flight credit, and the only one not on CO, was before the merger was announced and was SVO-LED.
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Old Feb 29th, 2012, 08:16 PM
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Too bad the United tulip is going/gone away.
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Old Mar 1st, 2012, 04:33 AM
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Kathie, that's funny. My first Continental flight was also notable for a large air pocket on a flight into Denver. Not really the airline's fault--just something that has made me remember that flight 25 years later.

Didn't fly CO again until it joined the Star Alliance--wasn't really avoiding CO; it just didn't generally fit my route needs out of Chicago.

I've had a few flights on CO in the last couple of years. Nothing really out of the ordinary (which is good)--other than that I'm already getting tired of being offered the cheeseburger (it was on my last UA flight in January, too).

I'm hoping the rest of the integration goes fairly smoothly, but glad I'm not flying in the next week.
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Old Mar 1st, 2012, 05:22 AM
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We've consistently flown Continental since we fly out of Cleveland and they go everywhere we want, or at least they used to. Now I see more and more flights going to Chicago rather than Newark, and almost all on the small planes that only offer tourist class. I would guess that Cleveland will soon no longer be a hub.

One thing I liked about Continental was that they had a good web site with a lot of information (such as menus, and information on which planes have lie flat seating). We have our first flight tomorrow on UA metal, and when I went to check information on the flights, such as the upgrade list, and onboard amenities, they just said the information was not being given for these flights. I'm hoping the consumer friendly attitude of Continental will prevail after the merger. It certainly wouldn't cost them much, and would make that airline more pleasant.
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Old Mar 1st, 2012, 11:46 AM
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No pleasant memories from me, I remember my first experience quite vividly.

About 24 years ago, I was lucky to have been given a round the world ticket in first class. One of the segments was Sydney to Honolulu with Continental, I made the mistake of returning a cup of coffee as it was barely lukewarm, big mistake, from then on the hostie pretty much threw the food and drink at me. The onward trip to LAX was not much better, luckily the other segments were with BA
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Old Mar 1st, 2012, 06:40 PM
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We are flying tomorrow on United, SEA-SFO, SFO-LIH. I'm hoping it will all go smoothly. As we all know, the new mileage plus program takes effect on Saturday. I pointed out to Cheryl that this will be the last flight she takes as a mere premier, as I'mm a million-miler and I've nominated her to share my premier exec status.
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Old Mar 2nd, 2012, 12:53 AM
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This is how you can tell if you plane has a Continental pilot or a United pilot. If the fasten seatbelt sign is turned off after ten minutes of smooth air, you have a United pilot. If the fasten seatbelt sign stays on for an hour due to one bump, and is never turned off during the flight after the second air bump, you have a Continental pilot.
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Old Mar 2nd, 2012, 04:07 PM
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January 9, 2012. No Continental plane to get us home from Lima. Complete fiasco at Lima airport even though they knew for 12 hours there would be no plane as it never took off from Newark. Next day a heart attack on board the replacement flight means we are diverted to Baltimore and then finally arrive at Newark at 12:30 am. Next to zero help for 100 people looking for hotels and next day boarding passes.
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Old Mar 2nd, 2012, 04:26 PM
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This is my last day as a 1K. Gold tomorrow. Likely won't make silver this year.
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Old Mar 2nd, 2012, 05:47 PM
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Continental was the fourth airline I ever flew, back in the 1980s when they still had the orange and gold color scheme. I flew them most often (via Houston) when I lived in the southwestern US, but I did take them internationally one time (EWR-EDI-EWR). I don't recall any particularly wonderful or awful experiences.

CO's demise means that now the first five airlines I flew have either gone out of business or merged out of existence (Eastern, Air Florida, the old Piedmont, Continental, and Pan Am).

Number six (KLM) is still around, but number 7 (Braathens SAFE) is gone, too. Makes me sound old!

I do find it interesting that Saul Bass designed both the "jetstream" CO logo and the "tulip" UA logo, and now both of those are gone, too.
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Old Mar 2nd, 2012, 07:57 PM
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My first commercial flight was on TWA from MDT (Harrisburg)-IAD-STL-SFO. My only trip across the Atlantic was EWR to LIS back to EWR on Continental. I had to fly to Lisbon to get a flight back to Lajes, Azores on TAP (Air Portugal). TAP did pay us for my wife's lost bag which showed up 4 days later minus the strap and a handle.
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Old Mar 3rd, 2012, 04:01 AM
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Wally, I sent your comment about United vs Continental pilots to my United SIL. He loved it!
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Old Mar 3rd, 2012, 05:50 AM
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CO was the first of 8 airlines to lose my luggage, a long running tradition that continues to this day. <sigh>

But none of my 3 emergency landings were on CO.
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Old Mar 3rd, 2012, 06:19 AM
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I got my 1K million miler kit, delivered by FedEx, yesterday morning. Fancy!!! Then, the mailman brought yet another UA packet, this one a 'regular' 1K kit. I now have 20 drink chits.... don't tell anyone! (10 from each kit)

The next hurdle will be in getting DH's new card. He was sent a silver (2p..Premier) card, which he had earned last year, but now that I'm 1K MM, he will be 'matched to my status.' We have yet to see what that means. On flyertalk, the UA regulars read the new rules to say that DH will get a 1K card, to "match my current status," but a UA rep told me it would be a star gold (premier exec) card, to match my new lifetime status of star gold. Only time will tell which one wins out. The 'language' on the UA was really quite ambiguous, and now the questionable 'language' has been removed!

We are flying to Europe in two weeks. DH will not have his updated card until early April (according to UA rep). Hmmm.. glad he is on the same ticket with ME so he can have two free checked bags instead of only one. But we could probably use that 3rd bag he 'should get' with a star gold card... which he won't yet have in his hand. Wondering if the UA computers in Zurich will 'know' his new status when we check in to fly home!!

Carol
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