Continental Airlines Review

Continental isn't the largest airline in the American skies. It's not the oldest. It's not the most famous. It doesn't have ticket the most passengers, and it doesn't own the biggest fleet. It's not the cheapest either. But here and now, with the realities of the U.S. airline industry of 2007, it pretty much has a hammerlock on any claim to being the BEST.

Frankly, I'd rather fly the BEST airline than the CHEAPEST or the BIGGEST airline, and that's saying something, since budget travel has always been a concept very near and dear to my dollar-loving heart.

Every airline has its bad days, and Continental, with thousands of flight operations, will occasionally have a delayed flight or will sometimes bump passengers from overcrowded flights. They aren't perfect. But STATISTICALLY, you are less likely to be delayed on a Continental flight and less likely to lose your baggage than you are with many other U.S. carriers. The exact rankings vary, month to month, but over time, the trend is for Continental to outperform the industry norm (you can monitor the statistics yourself by viewing reports available from: airconsumer.ost.dot.gov).

What really sets Continental apart from the pack these days are SERVICE issues and CUSTOMER LOYALTY issues. A few examples:

* Continental serves meals in coach on longer flights that span a meal time

* Continental does not steal your frequent flier miles with a passenger-hostile mileage expiration period

* Continental does not do stupid surcharges for things like requesting an aisle seat

* Continental assigns seats

* Continental does not do stupid surcharges for checking a suitcase

In short, even if you have to pay a couple dollars more for a Continental flight than you might on a budget carrier, you are very likely to get a superior flying experience and you are more likely to arrive on time with your baggage. With a full-featured frequent flyer program, you're also likely to actually get a chance to earn a reward with Continental --- that's a big difference from low-cost carriers like Southwest or JetBlue, both of which have poor frequent flyer programs with anemic earning avenues and that expire your miles out from under you.

A Little About My Experience with Continental...

I've been flying Continental heavily since the late 1990s. I'm a Silver Elite level frequent flyer with them and have flown something over 200 flights with them. I live in one of their hub markets, so it's almost always the most convenient airline for me, and I often travel in Latin America, which is Continental's strength. I like to book online, check-in on line or at kiosks, and I usually fly with little or no checked baggage. I fly about 50-50 business and leisure, and my leisure travel is usually as a Dad accompanied by at least one kid. I've been bumped, I've been delayed, but I've never been seriously ticked off at Continental. Over almost a decade of flying, that's an accomplishment.

Booking Travel with Continental

I generally book online via Continental's web site (www.continental.com). I often get bonus miles for doing so, and the process is usually quite easy. Continental flights can also be booked through any traditional travel agent or through online sites like Travelocity, Expedia, or Orbitz, but you save $5 by booking direct through Continental. That's a much friendlier approach to passengers than airlines that are hostile to agents (like Northwest) or that don't support 3rd party travel sites (like Southwest or JetBlue). To be honest, both Southwest and JetBlue have some serious problems with their online web sites, so I can see why a sane traveler might avoid their web sites like the plague, though it's hard to do. I'd sure pay $5 not to have to endure Southwest's ugly user interface! On the whole, booking online with Continental is better than average.

Good points to booking on continental.com:

* can find lower airfares by using the "+/- 3 day" feature and the "nearby airports" feature

* can easily find and book last-minute weekend getaway fares

* excellent flight status and reservation management tools

Bad points to booking on continental.com:

* because it's an airline site, you can't compare fares (so use kayak.com or similar tools)

* can't hold a reservation for 24 hours (you can still do this on American...so Continental loses this customer-friendly battle)

Checking In for a Flight

I've become a big fan of early check-in, and I often check-in for domestic flights from my home computer before leaving for the airport. Unfortunately, this feature isn't available for international flights, but Continental has done a great job of filling the airports with kiosks that make the check-in process faster than ever. Unfortunately again, they haven't done enough to get these kiosks into foreign airports, even at Mexican airports in which they have heavy departure schedules. That's good because I've sometimes had unacceptably long check-in waits at Houston's Intercontinental airport (though not recently). On the whole, Continental is somewhat better than average on flight check-in.

Frequent Flyer Program

Continental's OnePass is one of the best frequent flyer programs in the U.S. --- far better than average. The reasons are threefold:

* miles never expire

* great earning potential

* decent elite level

In addition to earning miles for flights, Continental has myriad travel partners (hotel chains, rental car chains, etc.), so a business trip can easily rack up 3-4 times as many miles from partners as from flight miles. The Chase MasterCard gives good earning potential, but it's a crummy card with high annual fees, foreign currency fees, high interest rates, and consumer-hostile terms. If I didn't get all the bonus miles, I'd drop it in a heartbeat, but the mileage earning potential really is pretty decent. Compare OnePass features to those of other frequent flyer programs and you'll see that some of the programs out there aren't really worth being loyal to...Continental OnePass still is.

The elite level has been whittled away in recent years (the Bronze level was eliminated about 5 years back), and isn't as strong as it once was, but it still has some perks to it, and it gives you an easier crack at redeeming miles for free air travel.

Bad points about OnePass:

* often hard to redeem miles (blackout dates, controlled availability)

* harder to get first-class upgrades than it used to be

Route Map

I like the dollar-saving potential of low-cost carriers, but I deplore their limited route maps. One reason I like Continental is because they fly almost everywhere I want to go. They cover the United States quite well (though they seem strongest along the East Coast and the South), they have the most extensive Latin American route map of any U.S. carrier, and they have decent breadth in Europe and Asia, with some excellent partners (like Air France) that extend their reach even further. Hubs are Houston Intercontinental (IAH), New York Liberty/Newark (EWR), and Cleveland (CLE). Overall, Continental has a significantly better than average route map.

Flight Experience

I generally like flying with Continental. Their planes are usually young and well maintained and they have larger carry-on bins than most airlines, so there's less chance that I have to give up precious legroom to slide a carryon bag under the seat. (That's important when you're as tall as I am.)

For domestic flights, Continental is the best performer in the air. They do real meal service and offer real snacks and drinks, even on shorter flights. They'll still give you a blanket if you need one, and their flight attendants have generally good attitudes.

I try to avoid all U.S. flag carriers when it comes to international travel because almost every foriegn flag carrier offers better service. I like a full meal on a longer flight, and I like things like complimentary wine and a free after dinner cocktail. U.S. carriers used to have acceptable service levels on international routes, but they somehow decided that nobody would notice if they didn't try to compete with foreign carriers any longer. Oh well. I notice, and I always prefer the foreign carriers now. I suggest you give 'em a try too and see what nobody else is noticing....I bet you notice just like I did.

Bottom Line

Continental isn't perfect. I view them as somewhat below average in an international marketplace but substantially above average in the U.S. domestic marketplace. Overall, I like Continental. I like that they provide a higher level service and a better quality product than U.S. competitors. I still wish they would set their standards even higher, but for an American company, they're good.