[mattkay]

All of us here have a story. Mine (family of 4) is that we got to the airport at 6:00 AM for a 7:25 AM flight on 4/6/09. All the eTicket materials say be there to be boarded and ticketed for international flights 60 minutes before your flight. I normally fly domestic, and while that is sufficient, I usually leave 75 to 90 minutes and have not had a problem. So, we go there 85 minutes before flight. Now, how are we suppossedto know that our flight is on a busy travel day?? According to the staff, we were expected to know that. Unfortunately, if Continental did, wouldn't it have been logical to have more employees trained and ready for this busy day?? Well, we waited on the ticketing line with more than, and I kid you not, over 500 people waiting. And they're calling out destinations left and right...all of them, but not ours, moving everyone called to the front of the line. There are no signs anywhere that say to speak up if you're concerned about making your flight. And there's no way to see if your flight's on time, delayed, or whatever, once you get on the waiting line. Signs, anyone?? When we were not moving anywhere (because so many people were being moved in front of us for their destinations), I went up to a 'red coated gentleman' and asked when our flight will be called. There were 55 minutes until flight time. He says you have missed your flight. We closed it, he said. This after waiting on line for 30 minutes. I asked for a supervisor and she listened to me less. I must say that was the most angry I can recall EVER being. I asked why my next step was. I was told that we could go bystander on the next and only other daily flight at 9:30 am. What other choice did we have? Our hotel was hundreds of $$$ per night, and we were about to let the first night of 6 go up in smoke. When we were walking over to the gate, after security, we met another family of 5, a family of 3 and 2 ladies that ALL had the same thing happen. There were others, too. All of us were waiting as bystanders. To boot, we find out that Continental had overbooked the flight anyway and beyond that, there were other stand bye's that were from domestic and international connection misses. Needless to say, we waited in vain, and watched as people that were ticketed were actually booted off the flight also (lured with a beginning offer of $500 airline credit which was raised to $900 per person...gee, did Continental feel guilty here? , plus hotel, car, food vouchers and flight tomorrow). In the case of us and our 4 families, over 20 people, 1 told me they would never fly Continental again, and the other families were re-booked for tomorrow, but were very embittered, as they, too, had followed what was written on their eTicket. What confounded me was that no one at the ticketing area was customer oriented. NO ONE. At the gate, the people towed the 'company line', but were at least somewhat understanding. We then walked down to try to get our bags. Another nightmare! The gate attendants said they'd be on carousel 9. We went there, waited 30 minutes. Nothing. Then we went to baggage customer service. Two attendents at the counter there. One was nice but totally misinformed us...we waited again another 30 minutes and nothing happened. I then went to the other attendant, older and clearly more experienced. She said that she didn't understand why her co-worker told me what she had, and then this one made 4 phone calls, located our bags, which had been sent to 'performance' would be released to carousel 9 in about 30 minutes. This lady was truly concerned, the only person we met all day that cared. So, after a total wait of 2.5 hours for our bags, 1.5 hours for a stand-bye flight that we should never have been put on, and 1.5 hours of futility caused by Continental not having enough trained employees on staff this morning, we wasted a morning of our lives. We disappointed our children. We lost money on our hotel. Our trip was shortened a day. Am I upset? You betcha. Jet Blue is my alternative. (funny thing, I just flew Continental 2 times in last 4 months to Vegas from EWR, and aside from the skimpy seats, I felt pretty good about the flights. That's gone forever).

Oh, and I see that there are some people here that say they know Continental VP's, etc. ? Yes, let him know about this. I will substantiate it, give names or descriptions of the others who were mistreated and would love to hear how he can ever recommend for us to even consider flying his airline again. I'm so upset that I own stock in this, too. Thank you.