[larryau]

On December 26, 2010 I had reservations for flight 387 from Newark to Orange County, these are the events from that day.
Going through security was quick. Boarding of aircraft went easy.

Once the plane was ready to back out, it was discovered that someone had forced the door to the aircraft and sheared a pin. Crew notified passengers that the mechanics were called. Once the mechanic arrived about 20 minutes later - they saw what part was broken and went for the part. This took about an hour and then another 20 minutes to fix the door. Total time = approximately 2 hours. During the time waiting for the mechanic and fixing the door - passengers were told that they could deplane but to stay near.

Since the weather was bad in Newark the plane was taken for de-icing. The de-icing took around 20-30 minutes.

Once the de-icing was complete, we were notified that one of the passengers decided that they didn't want to travel on this flight and that it was a law that Continental had to let them off - which meant that we had to go back to the gate. The plane sat in place for at least 30 possibly 45 minutes before it taxied towards the gate. Then we needed to wait for a crew to pull the plane in.

Once in, these passengers that wanted to deplane took their time in getting off, in fact one of them forgot something and had to come back. No crew member helped them - in order to speed up the process. Another 30 minutes passed after they were off the plane, when we were informed that the crew was over time (not sure of the words they used) and that they now needed to look for another crew to fly.

Sometime past when they asked everyone to deplane and stay near to the gate, this was a little after 4. At 6:45, a few hours after all other planes stopped flying out Continental decided to cancel this flight.

Now I have a few questions:
1) Where does it say that airlines are required to let people that don't want to fly off of the aircraft? Does this mean that sometime in the future I can tell the crew once we're near takeoff that I don't want to fly and I will be taken back to the gate? Isn't this a little costly for Continental and the passengers that fly?
2) Does Continental understand that the longer we were asked to wait, the more difficult it was for passengers to find hotel rooms and for the passengers who lived here - the dangerous situation they put them in; in attempting to get home while the weather and roads were getting worse? Once again, Continental took our rights away for the ones that decided they didn't want to fly.
2) Why were the rights of everyone else on this flight denyed for one other party?
3) Why wasn't a new flight crew requested once they knew that the plane had to go back to the gate?
4) Why did Continental tell us that we had to stay near the gate once we deplaned at 4 p.m.?
5) When Continental spends millions of dollars in advertising how great they are and how great their new alliance with United will be - do they expect the travelers to chose Continental or United after a ridiculous experience like this?
6) What type of accomidation do we get for our loss?

After all of this, Continental's customer service at the airport could not assure us that we would get a refund of both a flight that was paid for and the miles that we used for one of the tickets. They suggested that we call Continental and request both. No one answers today re these requests.

Seems like Continental has done everything to irritate and inconvience us and the others on this flight for the few whose rights could not be violated? Please note, I did call and ask, after investigating what rights travelers have, to show me where it says these people who asked to get off the plane - have that right. NO one at Continental can show me where this is stipulated.

[Jetliner]

Actually you can pretty much thank Kate Hanni for this mess. She's the one who pushed that whole passenger's bill of rights thing. Basically if the plane is going to be on the ground for 3 hours or more they have to give you the option to get off. Now that doesn't mean when the plane is taxiing out ready to take off, but some airlines would still do that because it's too easy to get fined on this one. And we are talking something like $26,000 per passenger on that plane.

At 4pm you would have been told to stay close to the gate so that when it was time to go you could quickly board and go. As you now know things in the New York area broke down pretty quickly, so they had no choice but to end up canceling the flight. But again, due to the passengers rights thing they had to give yo the option to get off in the first place.

Wen the crew timed out they would have started working on a replacment crew before your plane was even parked at back at the gate. But again with everything going on, that may not have ended up happening. More than likely what happened was that they were going to use a crew that was coming in on a flight, and in the end that flight never got to Newark.

[larryau]

it must be you, as you are covering the company's butt. the story of what happened does not stop at the end of my 1st note - but in reply to your comment.
1) everyone was offered to get off the plane between 12:45 and 1:40 (approx times), so people (including the person who wanted off after the de-icing) took advantage of this - all returned & plane backed out and went on to be de-iced.
2) at 4 o'clock when we deplaned - EVERY Outbound FLIGHT at Newark, not some but Every Outbound Flight had been cancelled! Apparently the only ones not to know were the gate agents.
3) Continental knew after the plane was de-iced that nothing was flying out, there were some flights coming in. So what you are telling me is that they were betting that there may be some very slight chance that one flight out of 100's that were cancelled might have a pilot on an incoming flight that had the time available to fly this craft to Orange County? sorry, if you want me to believe that then there will be two of us who are wrong.

So now we're home where we started and we need to insure that we actually have rec'd credit for both of these fares. After 3 days of calling, found out that the agent at the gate in Newark only requested refund of the outbound flight and that continental expected us to be on the return flight (not sure of how they think we'd get from Newark to Southern California), it has taken several calls - being put on hold for 30-45 minutes each time to fix this issue.

My point in this, is that as rude as Continental was with taking away the rights of everyone on the plane for one - they compounded the problem by making us wait an additional 3 hours and 45 minutes after announcing the the plane was returning to the gate and then made us fight to get our monies returned. What kind of business is Jeff Smisek and his group running - monkey business?? Maybe we should nominate him for ape of the year.

Jeff there are other airlines we can fly - in fact a couple of them are coming into your hub in Newark - I say we all vote with our feet and stop flying Continental or United whenever possible.

[larryau]

Jetliner: I went back and reviewed quite a few of your posts - and it's extremely evident that you always take the side of the company. Why don't you change your handle to : CompanyMan or Apoligist for the Airlines?