Sojourn

First off, I have always had really good luck while traveling. A delay here and there but nothing was ever too serious. That changed this weekend. I have never in my 19 years of life, ever experienced something this outrageous. There are no words to describe how truly awful my experience on Continental was. I hope you enjoy.

Saturday 12:30A.M.

I stayed up late packing and heard from family the weather back home, around the city and Northern Jersey, was bad. I really didn’t think anything of it but checked the status of Continental 1154 and saw it was cancelled. Again it really didn’t bother me and I went to bed thinking things would change.

Saturday 6:25A.M.

I get to ATL and head to the Continental check-in Area. This early in the morning and it’s already a zoo. There was a line about 100 to 120 people deep waiting to speak to an agent. When I say “an” agent I really mean it, there was only one. I became friendly with a Sargent from the NYPD and asked her to watch my bags. (We would spend the day together working together to get out of Atlanta) I went up to another agent and asked what she could do for me. In the calmest and most condescending tone I have ever heard, she said, “You’ll just have to wait here, we can’t get you out until Tuesday”. I go over to the woman I met and tell her. We both, by now, are extremely agitated. I started my spring break that day and she needed to get back to her family in New York. We work our way to the lone agent armed with as many questions as we can think of. He had been there for 5 hours (something we could tell from his appearance, but he so graciously volunteered to us later in the conversation) and was totally out of it. We tried every single city combination from Atlanta, but everything was oversold or cancelled. It was like he was a zomby though, he was giving us limited information. He gave us two choices, get a refund for the ticket or be put on standby for CO 1150 at 3:45P.M. At that time there were 38 people on standby. By the time the flight boarded there would be 58. That information aside, we got our BP’s and headed to security.

Saturday 8:00A.M-11:30A.M.

Security looked like a mob scene but it moved pretty quickly. We trekked down those really long escalators to the subway for concourses A through E. They have those boards with all the flights in-front-of the train so we decided to see what other flights to the New York Area were departing. It became clear since ATL is a Delta hub, we should try to be put on standby for one of their flights. That decided, we went to the D concourse to talk with a Continental representative. She told us we could switch from out Continental ticket to one from Delta. That meant we had 4 chances to get home on flights to New York. We spent the next two and a half hours running from Concourse D to A and B. We talked to a few agents from Delta and they said to go over to the Delta Customer Service area in-front-of A18. That area was an even bigger zoo than security. She being a Sergeant, we pushed our way to the wall of phones. There was a man finishing his conversation as we both walked up and we asked to speak to the person he was talking to. He handed the phone to the Sergeant and the Delta rep said, “I’m sorry everyone has to wait their tern.”. That is a bunch of BS, when there are hundreds of angry people around, your job is to make things efficient, this was definitely not that. It finally came down to the Delta people telling us we needed to go back to Continental. The real kicker though was, the woman at CO never switched our tickets or put us on standby for anything. We went from hoping to get on one of four flights to just being on standby for one.

Saturday 2:15P.M.

We walked back to the same desk where the woman seriously misinformed us. We didn’t think she would still be there, but we were so glad she was. We waited, there were about 5 people ahead of us, talking loudly enough so she could hear us. Finally she was available and we both asked her what was going on. She said, Delta should have taken the ticket but for some reason they were choosing not to. She could have stamped something on our tickets, but by now it was getting too close to the boarding tome for us to run to Concourse A. So unbelievably frustrated, we through our hands up and went to the boarding gate D12.

Saturday 3:10P.M.

We just sat there thinking of the days events and how badly Continental screwed us. I actually got on the phone with 800-WE-CARE2, but the line was busy. What a shocker. In fact, the 800 number for Continental was busy all day. As we were talking, we noticed the flight time had been moved to 5:45. It was almost enough to make us sick to our stomachs. We went up to the counter to ask what the hell was going on and they didn’t have any answers. At the desk, we asked about how they determine standby. One said it was first come first serve and the other said it was based on your fare class and status with CO. Do any of you know the real answer?

Saturday 4:30P.M.

Nothing eventful really happened between 3:10P.M. and this point. Shortly after 4:30P.M. though the gate agent got on the loudspeaker and explained there was a red alert at EWR and nothing arrive or depart. Fair enough, but she made this statement over another announcement. After it was done, she began to scream over the loudspeaker saying things like, “all of you better be quiet, I don’t want you coming up to the desk and asking the same questions”. It was absolutely appalling, it was like she was talking to us like we were three. It was completely unacceptable and she was a supervisor too. The Sergeant I was with got her name so I’m sure something will happen.

Saturday 5:30P.M.

This was the icing on the cake, she got on the speaker again and told us the crew for this flight was yet to arrive. They weren’t even in Newark. It was completely outrageous. The woman’s tone was still very nasty. By now there were 30 or so people in-front-of the counter. About 8 of us began to talk about how crazy things were. Someone said they began cancelling flights Thursday night, no one told us that. Continental didn’t have any information about that on their web page.

5:45P.M.

By now, we found out there were almost 60 people on the standby list. Of the 8, 5 of us were standby. Our chances really looked good though. Instead of the regular 737-500, they brought in a 155 seat 737-800. At the gate area, there didn’t look to be that many people. All this information into account, our spirits were high. The crew arrived shortly after and they were ready to begin boarding.

5:50P.M.

Now a lot more people came. What looked to be about 100 was now close to 200 people waiting by the gate area. The woman I was with asked the gate agent a question, while there were a few people ahead of her. The gate agent lost it and started screaming at the woman I was with. Naturally, the Sergeant yelled back. The woman walked to her and handed out the WE-CARE number. That was totally unprofessional, she never should have raised here voice. Now they began to board the plane and the 8 of us stood to the side. This was the best part about the entire day. Because of the altercation earlier, the gate agent called the police. There were 3 of them standing against he wall watching us. I still can’t believe she called them. I have pictures and I’ll have to post them later.

The flight was completely full and oversold by at least 10 we were told. They eventually called all the rows of the aircraft and there were about 15 or 2o people standing around waiting for their names to be called. It was almost like wining the lottery. The list of standby’s was so long and it looked so hopeless. They called about 9 or 10 people and shut the door and that was it. That was the last flight to Newark of the day and there was no other way to get home. I was almost in tears. It was so frustrating to spend almost 12 hours at the airport, running from concourse to concourse, and have nothing productive happen. After this ordeal, I will NEVER fly Continental Airline again. I understand t his was weather, but the way they handled it was unforgivable.

Up next: Waiting on the tarmac for 4 hours and being faced with the possibility of turning around...