Complain about a product or service

Continental Airlines

Continental Airlines • Bereavement • Canines • Delays • Luggage • Minors • Overbooking • Rudeness • Treatment of asthmatics

It's beyond sad to see how severely service has deteriorated at major carriers. How is it that jetBlue, Southwest and the other low-fare carriers can offer such friendly, even enthusiastic, service while the likes of Continental snarl and snap at their customers?

Southwest says its secret is that it hires friendly people. Maybe a few of the high-cost, low-service carriers should take a lesson from this.

A few of the more recent complaints ...

Danny of Killeen, TX June 16, 2009

First of all, this is my first time flying with Continental Airline, I hope i'll never fly with continental in my life again. i have flown many airlines in my life, this is the worst one i have ever experience..the flight attendance were rude, the ticketing personal in the terminal were rude, the airline were having problem. what else could happen....

anthony of el paso, TX June 12, 2009

my wife and i purchased a ticket for her to go to the philippines and get our son and bring him home. continental airlines was the carrier. upon her departure from el paso in march of 2009, continental caused her to miss her connecting flight at george bush intl in houston. her connecting flight on japan airlines left four hours prior to her arrivaL. she stayed in houston for nine hours and they never even fed her pretzels or peanuts. when she finally arrived in manila, to our dismay, her luggage was not there.

i personally called continental baggage dept and they were rude and completely held me responsible folr tracking down the luggage by calling san francisco to contact japan airline. after my verbal confrontation with the agent who refused to let me speak to a manager, the agent threatened to have her corporate lawyer contact me. anyway, the luggage did not arrive in manila until three weeks after my wife arrived back in el paso.

when my wife left manila, she arrived late in houston again missing her connectinf flight to el paso by four hours this time. my wife and communicated by phone several times as she was with my son. i called continental and continental cust serv told me that she would probably not depart houston leaving for el paso until monday, which meant my wife and 2 and a half year old son would be stranded in bush intl airport for appx 6 days. i asked the agent if they were going to [them] in a hotel, which is only reasonable seeing as to how none of this delay was there fault. continental cust serv replied, "no, we don't do that." i replied that when amercan airlines caused me to miss a connecting flight once, they put me in a hotel. continental agent replied, we are not american airlines.

after repeated phone calls to cust serv to find out status of wife and son, they finally told me about three hours later that they were able to put my wife ans son on a flight to el paso the same day. accorditg to my wife, whom i have no reason to disbelieve, the ticket agent tried to coax my wife into giving up my 2 and a half year old son's seat and having her to hold my son in her lap. my wife promptly told him "no," because we paid for two adult tickets. my son was charged the same fare as an adult because he is [over] the age of two.

it was the most horrible experience i have ever personally experienced by an airline. most of the customer service agents had no remorse whatsoever! i will never use my credit card or any other financial resource to purchase anything from continental again! luggage not got to destination during the entire trip. did not feed my wife or son while in houston airport. also, a pair of my wife;s shoes were missing from the luggage and one of her luggage bags.

Kelley of Hamilton, AL June 10, 2009

On Sunday morning June 7, 2009 I was sitting in a window seat on flight 2797 out of Phoenix. As we neared take-off speed I saw the spoiler's pop up and new this plane wasn't taking off on schedule. A few minutes later the flight crew told us #2 had overheated. I suppose that TIT was above red line. We taxied to a clear place on the ramp and then #1 also started smoking. We wound up returning to the gate and getting off the plane. As I got off the plane I told the PIC thanks, the FO was outside, but since there was a line behind me I didn't get to tell him how much I appreciated his professionalism. Or maybe the FO was flying and it was her professionalism. I know that if take off had continued and we had reached enough speed the TIT would have gone below red line OR we could have had an engine failure and been struggling at V1 to reach V2. Gate agents Brandon and Ana helped get folks onto other flights in a logical manner. I saw that some were mad that they didn't get immediate flights on to Houston. But for me, I was glad to be sitting in that chair instead of being in some burning wreckage at the end of runway 7. As a commercial pilot, with multiengine and sea plane ratings and an instrument instructor and ground instructor and an A&P rating, I want to say thanks to the crew of flight 2797!

Bang of Fairfax, VA June 3, 2009

Continental airlines mechanical problems. On dec 23rd 2008 my family was on flight co1702 from Newark NJ ewr to Sanfrancisco SFO, after 6 and 1/2 hour flight, the airplane flaps did not work. Pilots had to circle 2 times and all passenger had to be in crash landing position. With a high speed landing on the run way, luckily the pilots did a good jobs, been trained to flight so, i guess, and when touch down safely, everyone was cheered, even the flight attendant had to say: "This is against company rules but I have to say to all of you Happy hollidays or merry christmas!"

On the ground fire trucks were all over us, but no news, nothing was reported during that time. About a month before that, there was a continental crash in colorado skidded off the run way! Continental airline is somehow bad in these recent years. So many accidents related to mechanical issue of the aircraft.

my family of 4 with 2 kids 7 and 10 were seperated completely. we struggled to have my wife seated with my 2 kids and i was seated all the way down to near end of the aircraft. We booked a few months before the flight and that how they treated us. i felt bad during the scary landing.... without my kids and wife next to me.

suvrat of avenel, NJ May 29, 2009

My mom recently traveled on CO83 (Delhi-Newark). She has the worst possible experience in flight and on arrival in Newark. The Continental ground staff in New Delhi was excellent. But after that it was things turned out to be too bad. My mother has traveled before on Air India, Air France and Kuwait airlines and continental seems to be worst. My mother has back problems(Collapsed disks). Therefore I ordered wheel chair for her. The new delhi ground staff were very courteous and helpful and made sure she did not have to do anythign that might hurt her back. In Flight the female stewardess simply refused to help her put her bags in the over head bin. A fellow passenger then came to her rescue. On the ground in Newark nobody came in the plane to assist her with her bag or the wheel chair. When she asked she was rudely told to go look outside. Then outside she found someone holding a wheel chair with her seat tag. The lady with the chair started asking my mother personal questions like what has she bought with her. Then at the baggage pickup she asked my mother to pickup the baggages her self, put them on the trolley. My mom told her that she will pay her handsomely and tehn only she helped. But then also my mom did end up picking of of the bags. Then the lady started telling my mom that all her luggage wil be opened. She asked her is she had bought any fruits etc. Then she said if my mom helps her she will help her back! When I received my mom the continental lady was pushing the trolly, my mom was pushing the wheel chair! Well I asked for a wheel chair as I know my mom cannot and should not be lifting heavy things. Making her lift heavy luggage is not only wrong but also inhumane. Finally continental staff offering to help with restricted things at customs is outright criminal. If my mom suffers any pain or injury I am going to hold continental responsible. I am also going to pursue the seemingly criminal conduct of your staff with regards to customs with US Border and Customs agents.

Daniel of Paramus, NJ May 29, 2009

On a Zurich, Switzerland flight to Newark, the flight attendants refused to serve more than one cup of water during the beverage service. It was a 9 hour flight that I had to beg for water in the galley during the flight. I was told by Continental subsequently that it was their policy not to serve water to the passengers outside of their beverage service times - and only limited so it will be sufficient for all passengers. I had a diabetic condition and had extremely high blood sugar level as result of dehydration.

Peter of Austin, TX May 20, 2009

This letter does not refer to myself in particular. I find in incomprehensible that after the recent Buffalo, NY crash, and the resulting findings which point our ommissions in training and prepardness of pilots that are in my mind criminally negigent, not a peep from Continental. I would expect a mea culpa from the President as well as an indication of corrective actions taken to avoid repetition in the future. In other countries the CEO would have the decency to resign in shame.So many lives lost and for Continetal it is business as usual.

Nancy of Hampton, IL May 19, 2009

Aftr saving for two years to take a much needed vacation in Mexico with my in-laws, I finally got some tickets at what I thought was a reasonable price online. After purchasing the tickets and recieving comfirmation a month ahead of time, I was informed by e-mail that the flight had been cancelled. So we have available seats the next day on a flight leaving at 5:57 am. So after sending two e-mails saying that this would beok, I nmade arrangements to get someone to take us to Chicago O'Hare airport which is 21/2 to 3 hours away.

When we get there at 3:30 am we stand in line to check in. The ticket people were late opening the counter andvery slow. After finally getting to the counter and not being able to find our reservation on the machine(I guess it is all do it yourself now) FINALLY, a ticket person came to help us. He was very rude very abrupt and absolutly no help at all.Come to find out the departure date was changed again andthere was nothing we could do. His suggestin was to " Call yor travel agency" Did not offer any possible solutions and basically made us feel we were SOL.

In the meantime our ride had left to go back home and we were stranded there with no idea of how we were going to get to our destination. So we stood in line Again to see if there was any suggestions to remedy the situation as it was not our fault that the original flight was cancelled and we had to adjust our plans accordingly. This was a long planned vacation and we have already lost one day.

This time I talked to a woman at tyhe next counter to the man that I had previously talked to, who by the way, felt he had to whisper to the womann about us. Thwe woman was just as rude as the man when I asked what we could do to get to our destination. She sent me on a wild goose chase to other airlines to see if we could trade our tickets for a flight on one of their planes. Well, the other airlines was very nice, but said they could not help us, that Continental had to do the transfer. So I walked all the way back to the other terminal to stand in line again.

So basically, we got the runaround, lost two-three days of our vacation, put several friends and family at an inconvenience and got nowhere. We finally wound up renting a car at exorbitant Chicago prices and drove back home to start over again the next day. I will NEVER use Continental again and plan to let everyone I know what kind of company they are. You would think that after a Continental flight crashes and kills all the passengers and crew duee to lack of training that they company would be doing everything in it's power to keep the customers that are still willing to fly with them.

Angelica of clermont, FL May 19, 2009

on 4/16 i was supposed to fly from Orlando to Monterrey Mexico with a stop in Houston, when we arrived to Houston it rained and all the flights were delayed, they finally boarded the Monterrey flight 6 hrs after and had us sitting in the plane with no air conditioning for almost 2 hours, after this time they proceeded to tell us that the flight was cancelled because the crew that was supposed to take us to our destination was not aware of the flight and had gone home.....!

we were later told by the guest service reps that there were no flights to monterrey confirmed until Wednesday, this day was a Friday night (already Saturday because it was 2:00 am when they took care of each one of us), they did not offer a place to stay that night and everybody had to sleep in the floor of the airport, they did not offer any other way to arrive to our destination on a confirm status until 3 days later and kept saying that waiting list was not going to be good until at least monday, my trip was supposed to be done by tuesday so i had to come back to orlando as there was no way to get to monterrey.

I went to the phones and tried to see about getting some kind of refund or voucher and they say over the phone that i should do it on their internet site, when i got home i did, it took an entire month to hear from them and at the end they refunded me 68.10 out of 445.59 that the ticket was.....

Glen of Tampa, FL May 16, 2009

On April 2 2009 My family and I flew from Tampa Fl. to Newark NJ. for a family wedding. Our 1:45 flight was delayed until 7:20pm due to a mechanical break down of the plane at the gate. Continental moved us to another flight because the plane was taken out of service due to engine problem. Our luggage was on the first flight and was to be removed to the second flight. At 6pm they had the plane fixed and it was leaving instantly. Since they changed our flights we were not alowed to get on the original plane and we were told our luggage would be on the sencond plane anyway.

We arrived in N.J. to find that our luggage was not there. We went to the claim office and they had our luggage. It had arrived on the first flight eventhough they said it would be on the second flight. When we checked in to our hotel (after midnight) we discovered that all of our toiletries (shampoos,colone,vitamins,alergie pills,tooth paste and shaver) were missing.

I called the airline and was told when I get back i needed to fill out a claim form to be reinburst for my losses.I was told to buy what i needed and send them copies of the replaced items. One month later I recieved a check for less then half the amount I had requested.I had paid 15. per bag to travel and was told later that they were not responsible for the loss of my contents. I dont think it fair that they are not responsible for their employee theft. I paid them 15 per bag for them to safely get my bag there and they did not.

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