Why I will never fly Continental Airlines again

Dana Nau
August 8, 1999

Unfortunately, all flights from the US to Denmark fly at night. Since I've never been able to get any sleep on such flights, I anticipated that I would some time to recover before I could begin my bicycle trip in Denmark. Thus, I scheduled myself to arrive in Copenhagen one day early. My itinerary was as follows:

• a Continental Airlines flight from Baltimore to Newark at 7:30pm on July 25;
• a three-hour layover at the Newark airport;
• an SAS flight from Newark at 11:55pm, arriving in Copenhagen at 1:25pm on July 26.

However, things went badly wrong. Here's what happened:

• I arrived at the Baltimore airport around 6pm on July 25, only to find that Continental Airlines had cancelled their flight because of maintenance problems.
  
  
• All remaining flights from Baltimore to Newark were fully booked, so Continental put me on a taxi from Baltimore to Washington National, so that I could take Continental Airlines a flight from Washington National to Newark.
  
  
• After I arrived at Washington National, Continental told me they had also cancelled the flight from Washington National to Newark - again due to maintenance problems.
  
  
• There were no more flights to Newark that evening, so Continental had me take a Delta flight from Washington National to LaGuardia airport, followed by another taxi from LaGuardia to Newark.
  
  
• By the time the taxi reached the Newark airport, the SAS flight had left, leaving me stranded in the Newark airport.

The people at the SAS desk were quite courteous about the situation, and promptly rebooked me on a flight the following evening. However, the people at the Continental Airlines desk (which was getting ready to close, since it was now after midnight) refused even to talk to me, and were extremely rude about it. Luckily, I had overheard the Continental representative tell the person in line ahead of me (again rudely, but less rudely than she treated me) to go to Continental's baggage claim office - so I went downstairs to look for it.

The Continental baggage-claim office was a real zoo - I had to wait in line for about 45 minutes behind a whole bunch of other people whose Continental flights had also been canceled. Continental Airlines gave me a hotel room in Newark for the night of July 25 - but by this time it was nearly 2:30 AM, so I didn't get much sleep.

My lack of sleep worried me. SAS had rebooked me to travel from Newark to Denmark on the night of July 26, so I anticipated that I wouldn't get any sleep for two nights in a row. That would leave me in rather sorry shape for beginning the bicycle trip on July 27!

On the day of July 26, I spent most of the day in the hotel room, making phone calls in order to explain my situation and try to get some help. My hope was that if I could persuade someone to give me an upgrade to business class on the SAS flight, this would give me comfortable enough seating that maybe I could get some sleep that night.

• I tried calling Continental airlines (the culprits responsible for this mess), but without any luck. What they wanted to do was to give me a travel voucher for future travel (as if I would ever want to fly with them again!).
  
  
• I tried calling SAS -the situation wasn't their fault, of course, but I hoped maybe they would take pity on me. No luck there either, but they suggested I try again when I got to the airport.
  
  
• I tried calling Scantours, the travel agency with whom I had booked the bicycle tour. They said they would leave a message with the SAS station master, but were pessimistic about getting any results. They suggested that I contact the travel agency who had issued the tickets.
  
  
• I tried calling Travel-On (the travel agency who had issued the tickets). They tried calling the airlines on my behalf, but called me back an hour later and said they had been unsuccessful.

That evening I tried again, at the SAS counter at the airport. No luck there either, but the cashier suggested I try again at the boarding gate.

I got to the boarding gate early, and was the second person to talk to the SAS representative after he arrived. I explained my situation, emphasizing that it was all Continental's fault rather than SAS's, but that I was in a bad predicament and was hoping he could help me. Finally, some success: he took my ticket to hold onto it for a while, and said he would see what they could do. Some time later, after the boarding process had started, another SAS representative called me to the desk and gave me a courtesy upgrade to first class.

For their help to me, I'm grateful both to SAS and to Agneta at Scantours (from my subsequent communications with her, I gather that her message to the station master was influential in getting the upgrade). Thanks both of you, it helped me a lot. Even though I got to Denmark a day late, the first-class seat was comfortable enough that I slept for several hours, and that made a big difference once I got there.

As for Continental airlines - I'll never fly on them again.

Postscript, September 2005: I've never flown on Continental since the incident I described above. But unfortunately, two of my Ph.D. students made the mistake of doing so, and both of them had results similar to mine!