From: ralf@fester.dell.com (Raymond La France - X2787)
Subject: Re: Airlines to Fly ***Please Read***
Organization: Storage Technology Corp.
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 18:39:17 GMT

Regarding the Continental bashing......
My wife and I have flown Continental several times over the past few years
for business travel and probably will not fly Continental again.  This
statement requires some qualification:

Continental's people are wonderful: they have never been rude to us and have
always done whatever they could to make our journeys pleasant.

I've had worse food on other airlines.

The prices are good and their schedules are convenient.

We've always gotten our luggage when we landed.

OK....sounds like a real love affair so far?  Lemme add one more good word:

Their flight crew is really great at handling mechanical problems and
in-flight emergencies.

That's not a complement to Continental at all....every flight we've taken 
with Continental has been plagued by mechanical problems.  Having worked
in flight simulation for the past seven years, I know that the cockpit
crew dealt with these problems PERFECTLY.  But when five out of five
Continental flights taken have had problems, you kinda start getting a
clue that maybe flying this airline is bad news.  These weren't all minor
problems, unless you consider inoperative landing gear/faulty indicators
(one of each) or loss of one out of two engines on a full flight in bad  
weather to be minor.  

I was also displeased with Continental's treatment after our last inflight
emergency.  After jettisoning fuel over the Gulf of Mexico for 25-35 minutes
(lightening the aircraft to reduce thrust required to keep it aloft) and
making an emergency landing at IAH, a red-jacketed gate agent told us to go
get lunch and that he'd be able to help us get more information "in 15-20
minutes".  We did as we were told and came back 15 minutes later.  We asked
him for information on flights to Binghamton, NY (our destination) again, and
again we were told "I'll know something in 15-20 minutes."  This went on for
1.5 hrs.  I got tired of the same tired song and dance this Bozo was giving
me, so I talked to another gate agent.  She asked me, "Why didn't you ask
about this when you landed?  There were 3 other people going to Binghamton
and we got them on the last flight an hour ago."  I was furious at Bozo.  By
this time, the closest we could get to Binghamton was Philadelphia.  The gate
agent got our luggage from the plane for us (she wasn't supposed to) and got
us on the flight to Philadelphia.  We asked about a rental car so that we could
make the 3-hour drive from Philly to Bingo and she explained to us that the
airline could not rent the car for us due to liabililty reasons (understandable)but that if we sent a copy of the receipt to the customer service people that
we'd be reimbursed.  So we flew to Philly, rented the car, drove to NY and got
home at 0330 on a Monday morning instead of at 2035 (scheduled) Sunday evening.

We sent the receipt into the customer service folks ($150.00 + fuel) along with
a letter explaining what happened and that we'd not fly Continental again.  We
did not receive the reimbursement we were promised.  All we got was a coupon
for $100 off of our next flight with Continental and a "..gee whiz...we're
real sorry..." letter.  

I understand that excrement occurs, but when it occurs consistently it
is indicative of a systemic problem.  All I've gotten from my dealings with
Continental has been stomach acid and debt.  It won't happen again -- I'd
bungee jump using dental floss before I'd set foot on another Continental
aircraft.

In contrast, even though American has been portrayed as a bully in other
postings here, they've never let me down.  I've always gotten where I've
needed to go, pretty much on time everytime.  There has been ONE instance
of mechanical difficulty (out of over 100 flights) in my experience with them:
a portion of their avionics suite crapped out or something like that, and the
cockpit crew quickly got the plane back on the ground and repaired.  I only 
lost an hour, which did not result in missed connections.  Their people have
done everything short of smooching my posterior to make my business travel
pleasant, and I'm sure that if I'd asked they might have that, too.

I've racked up a lot of miles with USAir, too.  A lot of their people were
fairly rude and the food is truly awful, but I don't fly for culinary
pleasures -- I fly because I have someplace to be, and with USAir I've
always gotten there on time.

'Nuff said.

           - Ray LaFrance