[budrjc]

My wife and I were booked on a Continental flight from Richmond, Va to Cleveland, OH to Lexington, KY on 10/05/07 - purpose of trip was to see our granddaughter, whom we have not seen in 6 months. Flight was scheduled to depart at 6:30pm...we arrived at the ticket counter at aprox. 5:15pm and were informed that the flights were delayed ( the 2:45pm had still not arrived yet). The ticket agent explained that we would be booked on that flight when it arrived (standby), and would also be set up on the original flight (standby) just in case that we could not make the originally delayed flight...????. We recieved our boarding passes, proceeded through security and went to gate B2....my wife approached the counter to question the agent on staff and was told that " I can't deal with you right now", so we fall back on what the ticket agent told us and waited until 7:05pm....went back to the agent a gate B2 and was informed that they could not gaurantee any flights out or connecting flights thru Continental airlines, and would be happy to place us on another flight out with United...we would arrive at Lexington, KY at 11:30pm...another promise made by Continental??? If I had known this up front, I would have driven to Lexington and would have arrived at aprox. the same time. It appears that the major problem here is that the ticket agents have to deal with the inability of the airline to make schedule, of which they have no control over, and have no authority to correct other than placing us with another air carrier. Where is the certanty, when this occurs, that we will make connections, arrive on time, or have to book a motel in Cleveland, or just give up, turn in our tickets( thank god we had purchased flight insurance) so...we just gave up, turned in our tickets and came home...I guess my point is...reliabilty, customer service, and how can you remain in business operating under these circumstances?? Why even attempt to book a flight with Continental?? Sorry excuse for an airline....I have been in the aviation industry for over 33 years and have been involved in maintenance the entire time....do you think that I would have return business if I operated my business in this manner?...WAKE UP!!!!!!!!