I need an airline with a hub out of NYC. While I agree that UA's ps is better than B6, I lament the fact that there are essentially no other flights on UA out of the NYC area.

YX is nice but a non-stop on B6 with 32-34" of leg room beats a connection on YX with 33-34" of legroom.

And, honestly, I think B6 is great. No. it's not Pan Am clipper service, but it's affordable, comfortable, friendly. And I almost never watch the DirectTV (although I would say that crappy satellite TV sure beats CO's IFE which in about half the seats is not even viewable because the screens don't work properly).

The only reason I'm even posting here is that I am really unhappy about what's happened to CO. I love CO and it hurts me to see what the current management is doing to its best customers and its terrific employees, too.

I think CO needs to hear from us that we deserve better treatment, otherwise the bfread-and-butter clientele of CO will desert it.

I know that things are tough for loyal customers, but I give Continental a break for a few reasons.

(i) CO didn't file bankruptcy after 9/11. It could have. The airline could easily have created a scenario that would have justified Chapter 11, but it didn't. No one would have criticized the carrier for filing Chapter 11; it was kind of like a "get out of jail free" card. Frankly, I believe it used the bankruptcy issue well: there was always the implicit threat, which CO used to get needed concessions from employees;

(ii) Next, and this is just me, I realize few others feel this way! I am loyal to Continental. Continental employees have been very good to me. They have repeatedly gone above and beyond what they should have done. They're loyal to Continental and its customers and I am loyal to them.

(iii) There's an ego factor. I stuck with Continental in the 90's, in the tough times. I made a good call, for which I deserve no credit, but frankly, I feel good about it. I like telling other people that I have been a loyal CO customer for 15 years. In terms of the of the legacy carriers, Continental as been, for a long time, the golden child, and I will take any sliver of that reflected glory. ;)

I am a committed, passionate believer in Continental Airlines. It has done things right and it's not afraid to continue to do things right. The airline, IMHO, has done a marvelous job of balancing the disparate interests of its employees, its customers--particularly the frequent flyers, and its shareholders. It would fail if all three groups were happy; it would definitely fail if all three groups were unhappy. If each group is feeling a little angst right now, then management is probably doing something right. It's a balancing act and the company, IHMO, has done a good job. Q2 financials should validate this claim.

Things are rough now. Things are also getting better. I believe that Continental is committed to profitability. The employees, who put food on their table--and buy that table--based on CO's performance, have tightened their belts, so have I! Upgrades are hard to come by; the upgrade policy has shifted to higher fares; cheaper tickets take effort to find. IHMO, these are issues which frequent flyers will face until CO is back in the black. It's all part of the shared sacrifice.

I believe that Continental is committed to its customers. The airline doesn't only focus on people today, but on the passengers that will fly in the future. It has to get its fiscal house in order. Its financials are a mess. They're better than competitors, but who cares: what sort of a bench mark are carriers that fly "gas guzzling pigs(tm)" ;) When the CEO talks about matching JBLU in EWR, he's really talking about fighting for his customers. That's the language I like to hear and that's the leadership I want in my airline. :)

I believe that things will improve in the future. Why? Since 1995, Continental hasn't truly let its loyal customers down. Based on recent performance, I believe that the carrier will lead in innovation. When a competitor comes up with a new idea, CO will either copy/improve it, or simply leapfrog it. The ultimate score keeper is the income statement. Stay profitable; stay alive.

CO benefitted from its earlier bankruptcies, two of them, and as a result had other benefits that the others majors didn't have post-9/11. IIRC, CO had the lowest wages of all majors at the time, which let it ride out the downturn much longer without having to ask for several rounds of wage concessions.

By the time others had reduced their labor costs to the point where CO had high labor costs, with respect to its competitors, CO only had to do one round of cuts.

To suggest CO was on a level playing field at all times is incorrect. They started from a different baseline...

I would agree with you here. That is also why they were able to "do the right thing" by their loyal customer base for so long. And when DL and NW come out of C11 with a better product, CO is going to suffer for it. I always found it odd that DL and CO partnered up in Skyteam. It always seems like NW is more in sync with DL. One has to wonder if NW were to get reciprocal UG with NW and not CO what would happen to CO at that point? They may be better off splitting from ST and joining with VS in an alliance.

I appreciate the loyalty of ContinentalFan, I'm just having a hard time justifying going out of my way (my time is money, like everyone else's) and if CO is not going to offer me anything more than a LCC (like WN or B6 for NY based folks) then why should I be loyal? To be honest, the employee's have been a little more snarky these days and, to be honest, I've yet to meet a EWR GA that is remotely civilized, which is why I avoid EWR like there is no tomorrow. Just do a search of all the horror stories from folks on this board suffered at the hands of EWR based employees.

Any benefits from past reorganizations had long dissipated by 2001. The cost advantage enjoyed by CO came from a number of sources: part of the reason involved its hiring and equipment choices. Just a point of clarification: to the best of my knowledge, neither Delta nor Northwest has emerged from Chapter 11. I personally welcome any improvements that either DL or NW has to offer: competition is what it's all about. Given the recent track record of Continental, the carrier performs well in a competitive environment: bring it on!

I haven't seen any difference in the attitude of employees, but I haven't been looking for it either. I will keep an eye out tomorrow when I fly.

I am sorry you've had problems at EWR. My experience appears to be quite different. Sure, I have met short and surly employees; however, as a rule, I have met very professional and competent employees at EWR.

Let's not forget that, although CO did not enter Ch 11, they did receive fairly significant wage concessions from their employees in the post 9/11 period, essentially by using the threat of a potential bankruptcy as leverage over their unions.

Today, CO has low wage costs (CO's pliots are some of the lowest-paid in the industry, only US and UA have lower paid pilots among the legacies).

While clearly the post 9/11 environment has been brutal for airlines, especially now in the face of high fuel costs and low ticket prices, the fact of the matter is that the most signifcant change at CO has been the change in senior management.

Larry Kellner was Gordon Bethune's hand-picked successor. And while Kellner was a good CFO, his term as CEO has revealed his limitations as a strong leader. His entire career Kellner has been trained to watch the bottom line. So CO has slashed and cut to the bone in order to maintain short-term profitability.

But the airline business is much more complex than a classic balance sheet. The industry is very dynamic and a number of significant changes are taking place in the near future that could well leave CO in the dust in terms of value provided to the customer and thus customer satisfaction.

Under the regime of Bethune, CO understood that the customer is king/queen. Now little more than misleading lip service is paid to this Bethunian doctrine while the vast majority of customers, including the highest tier elite frequent flyers, are treated to an airline product that is sub-standard by current criteria and could well become vastly so once JetBlue becomes more established, Delta reconfigures its domestic fleet to improve its product (as it has announced it will do) and UA expands is premium service product.

Gordon Bethune always said it's easy to cut costs but it's hard to provide value. Kellner is cutting costs, not providing value. Not only is that bad for the customer, it's terrible for CO.

Edited, reason: Typos :eek:

In 2001, CO's labor rates were low primarily as a result of its earlier bankruptcies.

Further, CO had lower labor costs because of its younger workforce -- partly a side effect from alienating employees in its two earlier bankruptcies.

So not only did CO have lower rates, they also had fewer employees at the high end of the scale.

Perhaps by now, most of the earlier CO bankruptcy benefits have dissipated, but definitely not in 2001 -- CO was rolling in an advantage that no other U.S. major had, as none of the other majors had ever filed for bankruptcy at the time.

I stopped being loyal to any US carrier long ago. The FF programs have largely become a scam. Award availability sucks, international upgrades are increasingly difficult and often a huge hassle to get, they bait-and-switch you to SleazyPass and JerkPass (NW) award levels, domestic upgrades are harder, inflight service deteriorates.

So why bother with loyalty to any carrier? I now book whichever airline gives me the best combination of price, comfort, and convenience. YX is great: FC seats at coach fares. Sun Country is fantastic: FC fares that are cheaper than coach on the legacies. AirTran has good business class fares. And with the proliferation of YUP fares on the legacies, I'm often in FC even when flying a legacy carrier.

So even without any status, it is possible to have a decent flying experience in the US if you shop around.

International is another story. I am totally loyal to JAL, as I find them to be a true world-class airline with great rewards for their loyal customers.

"So CO has slashed and cut to the bone in order to maintain short-term profitability." Let me see if I understand this, you are citing CO among the legacy carriers as having "slashed and cut to the bone", yet it seems to me that they are the one legacy carrier that has NOT slashed the little things. Elite members can still book "preferred" seats, passengers still have access to pillows and blankets" and meals (not great in coach, in my opinion very good in first) are still served at meal time (to paraphrase Larry).

Southwest has an incredible, for the airline industry especially, record of continuous profitability. They make financial decisions that have proven outstanding, including not only fuel hedging, but not participating in airline booking engines, no advance seating and one type of aircraft. In my opinion Kellner has brought an excellent mix of financial acumen and customer service to the CO model as opposed to the solely financial model of Southwest as a commodity product.

That's my point. AA used this particularly strategy too. There was a while when AA looked "iffy," but it pulled through. Bankruptcy does have intangible expenses. CO, IMHO, did the right thing by not going down that path again.


We're definitely in agreement on this one. CO has good management--relative to the others in the field. I do notice a disagreement coming next. ;)


I think it's way too early to give this judgment on Larry Kellner. I know many CFO's that take a holistic approach to business and have a good sense on handling customers. I give the man more credit. The fact that he is focused on the bottom line is good; he has a balancing act to perform: three big constituencies to keep happy.


No question about that. More than many industries, the airlines are between a rock and a hard place: price sensitive customers and no substitute for their energy requirements.

I agree that the industry is going to face challenges coming up; it's really nothing new--it has happened before. However, the attack that is coming on TATL routes. (JBLU could have an advantage here). If "open skies" comes to pass, there will be a flood of new capital into the market.


I think that the change we have witnesses recently pre-dates Kellner. I haven't seen evidence that Larry Kellner's approach differs significantly from that of Bethune. I was a little concerned last year--for different reasons--because of an exceptionally aggressive international expansion: it worked.

CO won't stand still as competitors start to offer a better product. Right now, IMHO, the airline is doing the right thing: hoarding cash and shoring up the balance sheet. If and when DL unveils its new coach service, CO will respond. As you know, I like JBLU. It's only been around for six years and it's facing a challenge right now. I believe that this carrier will survive and prosper--Neeleman has had two successful attempts at starting/running an airline: he's not fluke! CO needs to keep an eye on JBLU: it could well ultimately be the largest, domestic threat.

Well said! CO has lost its focus on the loyal customers. I do agree that there should be some ties to $$ spent with CO, the bottom line is the fact that customers are loyal. I've flown 30+ flights on CO this year, mostly between IAH and YYC. Typical Elite loads on this flight are 80%. upgrades so far are less than 30% on Y & H tickets. New competition on this route now has CO at greater than a $200 premium on a non-refundable (U) ticket. CO has got to change its short term focus.

I agree with many of the points made in this thread about the diminution in elite upgrade benefits. And I agree with Channa's position on the bankruptcy issue.

While I understand frustration with the apparently high cost of CO compared with LCCs on some routes, the lack of upgrades, and the general lack of inexpensive fares, I'm still not certain how CO's reaction to increased demand for air travel translates into CO losing focus on its best customers.

Is CO less of a value now that it's more difficult to upgrade? If you were used to upgrading all the time, then probably. Are service levels deteriorating? IMO, no. EWR agents are still difficult and the Y product is the same as it was four years ago, with slightly reduced food service. The mileage redemption question has been discussed ad nauseum and I think people have agreed to disagree on this point (I've always used my miles without difficulty and have never used sleazypass).

As I said in an earlier post, I'm not sure what CO can do to regain "focus on its best customers." The lack of upgrades for plats seems to be a big issue, so the only reforms CO could undertake would be to (1) increase the size of the domestic fleet to add more capacity (not feasible financially and not in line with CO's plans to focus on int'l expansion); (2) increase the size of F cabins accross the fleet so that more upgrade space will be available (will be doing this with the conversion of the 738s), or; (3) do away with Z fares, increase A and D fares by 100%, and keep Y fares at the price level of Z fares, forcing people not to fly or to buy lower fares to keep clients or the boss happy. Even with higher top-end fares, with demand so high right now, pax probably still would not get upgraded much or would see a very marginal improvement at peak times.

Again, demand for air travel is incredibly high right now. So CO is going to sell many seats, including F seats, well in advance, and last minute elites are going to get stuck in middle seats on Y fares. This is something everyone has to deal with on every legacy carrier. The market has changed. But this is not an intnentional or even negligent alienation of CO's best customers.

The bottom line is that besides firing or retraining the entire EWR ground staff and upgrading the food in Y if it's that big a deal, I don't know what else CO realistically can do to alleviate the increasingly poor treatment of its best customers perceived by some. And I don't believe that NW and DL will roll out some revolutionary new products that will drive CO to radically alter its Y product after DL and NW emerge from bankruptcy (assuming they both will).

The Y product is the same as when Bethune was at the helm, with slightly reduced meal offerings. I find little difference between Bethune's CO and LK's CO, other than a heck of a lot more pax per flight these days, more international flights, and more difficult upgrades due to increased demand. LK's cost-cutting is not responsible for the Y cabin configuration nor increased travel demand. In addition, CO has been forced to match simplifares by competitive pressures, the long term effects of which have yet to materialize. But it seems to be working in the short term.

TWA Fan...

I honestly don't get the point of your posts of late. Every post in every thread I can remember of late is just you bashing CO. If you dislike the airline so much just move on to another. I can understand the occasional comment or whatnot, but you are really beating this to death.

We get it...CO is clearly a badly run, deceptive, airline.



Oh yeah, FWIW in regards to your comments about not enough 757's out of EWR...is there really any difference between a 757 and a 737 other than the length? I sure feel the same when I'm inside em.

Like most here I have been very loyal to CO for the past 10 years or so. With the lack of upgrades (I dont know what percentage) and the poor customer service by the ground staff I have been flying less and less on CO. This year I will fly approx 50K on CO and 50K on US. Getting the premium fliers are great in the short term for any airline but in a downturn the premium fliers are the first to go (just look at UA versus Southwest) and the last to return. The loyal customers are the ones that sustain and promote an airline when things head south. For those of us who have been with CO for 5 plus years, how many people have we brought on or opted to go online and purchase their tickets just to help our favorite airline.

This is my first year I will not work towards PE on CO but simply get to gold and this was not due to a lack of travel but a personal decision. I have decided not to complain but simply travel on what is most convenient for me. CO is a great airline but its loyalty to its members is lacking and has aliented many of the people who sustained it in past years. In the short term its biz will hold. For the long term we will have to wait and see.