Continental Airlines has a long history of financial drama. I clearly remember the mess that Frank Lorenzo left the airline in back in the late 1980's. That guys' main claim to fame was building discount airlines and union busting. Along the way, he broke both Eastern Airlines and Continental.
Gordon Bethune and Greg Brenneman helped turn Continental into a reliable, good airline that made money. Brenneman was a former Bain consultant and Bethune was an former Boeing executive. Both took a fresh approach to the airline business and made a significant difference in changing how Continental approached a market in which they were basically hated.
They used basic tenants such as "give the customer a meal if its mealtime." and a other logical methods to make flying Continental less painful than it had been previously. They also worked hard on employee pride. Continental employee morale improved considerably and we pax recognized it.
I remember in the late 90's when I got seriously mad at Delta. I mean really mad. My hometown airline had gone to hell in a hand basket regarding service, baggage handling, in flight service, pricing, reservations...just about everything. So I fired them. For two straight years I never flew Delta. They fly 600 flights a day out of ATL and but I wasn't on any of em.
Looking back, I find irony in "why I fired Delta" now. The straw that broke the camels back is sort of silly in retrospect. It had to do with a completely offensive meal idea that Delta had called "Sky Deli". Essentially you got an inferior sack lunch of tasteless, sub par foodstuffs. I thought I'd do better on a bus line than an airline with this kind of crap. That little marketing strategy sent me to the competition with GUSTO. I was offended. Garbage food, bad service and a passenger seat that gave you a wedgy wasn't for me.
For two years all I flew out of ATL was Continental. I was working for the COO of P&O Containers at the time and flew with great regularity to Newark from Atlanta. I made platinum with Continental in a year. Consider at the time that was 90 round trips on an airline that only flew direct from ATL to Houston, Cleveland and Newark. I was willing to change planes to make my point. That was a very positive experience. So positive I took my 16 year old son to Japan on Continental frequent flyer points.
Theres a valuable lesson above. With Delta and Northwest planning a major airline consolidation (it is a DAL acquisition if you haven't guessed this yet). I am delighted that Continental has decided to stay the course and remain independent. We need options as passengers.
I'm a platinum flyer nowadays on Delta. Delta got my business back after my travel patterns changed and I HAD to use them. Delta's service, to their credit, also improved. However, now that we live in a land of airline consolidation and general unhappiness amongst the flying public, I am reminded to have a two airline strategy. I'm willing to give Delta some slack because I'm pretty invested in them with a BUNCH of frequent flyer miles that get me frequent flyer status. However, they've had to earn that investment. I still don't trust any of the airlines.
Dear Continental: I may look like a stranger, but you may be getting some of my business back. Delta has 70,000 platinum flyers in ATL and I'm amongst them. I am loyal to my hometown airline, but with the market as unstable as it is, I'm going to spread my business around as a defensive strategy. Now don't blow this up by deciding later to get consumed in some mindless, serviceless, merger.
Eric
PS: Southwest, JetBlue and Airtran: Thank you for keeping prices reasonable in the markets in which you fly. I've had it with "the major airlines" for charging 1300 bucks for tickets into markets that lack discount competition. (helloooo... Louisville KY, Jackson MS, Charleston SC, Columbus Oh, Cincinnati Oh., etc.)
Abusing the passenger is never the answer. I'm ready to teach another lesson.
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