Continental Complaint

January 27, 2001

Gordon Bethune
Chief Executive Officer
Continental Airlines
1600 Smith Street, Dept. HQSCR
Houston, TX 77002

Dear Mr. Bethune,

The purpose of this letter is to express my utter disgust with your company as a result of a recent experience.

A brief explanation of the incident is as follows: On January 2, 2001, my wife and I took flight 4129 from Birmingham, AL to Denver, CO connecting through Houston on flight 35. We arrived at the gate in Birmingham one hour prior to departure and the aircraft was already there. However, the flight left 20 minutes late and no explanation was provided-even when I asked a member of the Continental gate crew directly.

My concern was that we would not make our connection in Houston, for which only 30 minutes had been allotted. As it turned out, we arrived only 10-15 minutes late to Concourse C in Houston but our connection was in Concourse A. We ran and made it to our connecting gate at exactly 3:30. Not only had our flight already left but another aircraft had already pulled in to the gate.

Were we booked on the next available flight? Yes. That is not my complaint. Here are some of the major reasons why I am upset with Continental (not to mention the fact that I missed two important appointments as a result):

·Our departure from Birmingham was late with no explanation provided.
·Our scheduled connection time in Houston was a mere 30 minutes, which, accounting for planing and de-planing at either end, is NOT enough time for the average person to travel from C to A Concourse in Houston.
·Your customer service representative who rebooked us was RUDE and CONDECENDING in manner. She said that 30 minutes is the "legal" connection and that there's nothing anyone can do about it. She said that if I arrived at the gate at 3:30 as I claimed that my watch must be wrong because the plane left the gate at 3:31. My watch must be wrong! I'm the paying customer damn it! It is OUT OF LINE for any employee of yours to tell me I'm wrong about anything!

Want to know the irony of this whole situation? The only reason we flew Continental that day was because, approximately one year earlier, a flight was canceled, stranding us in Houston overnight. We received travel vouchers, which would not even have happened if I had not complained. The difference this time is that the issue is greater than one flight-we are talking about a fundamental flaw in your business here. 30 minutes is not enough time to make a connection at George fucking Bush Airport! Think about how many customers you must piss off every day-but you don't hear about it because many of them go peacefully and choose to avoid Continental in the future. Who wins? Nobody.

So what do I want? I want change. I want someone like you to acknowledge that this is wrong and that I personally have been wronged. The easy thing for me to do would be to go peacefully and avoid Continental in the future. The problem is, to me that would be admitting defeat. I hate coming up on the losing end of a deal, which is clearly the case here. So, believe it or not, I want to give Continental one more shot-but I am sure as hell not paying for it. Therefore it is your decision to try to win me back as a customer or not. If you choose to do so, I will accept two $500 travel vouchers, one for myself and one for my wife, Audrey.

If you choose to give up on me as a potential customer, I say KEEP THAT ATTITUDE Mr. Bethune. I will enjoy watching as the Darwinian cycle of our free market economy chews you up and spits you out.

Sincerely,

Steve Dupont