I was reading another post http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/1006395/ and there was a reference that Continental shut down operations and then restarted. When and why did this happen? Thanks.

Kris
FLY THE FRIENDLY SKIES

No, they never shut down operations.

Yes, Continental DID indeed cease operations after their first Chapter 11 filing, but they were back in the air within the week.

To expand slightly, when CO filed its first 11 in 1983 (this was after the IAM refused to negotiate wage concessions to avoid the filing), all aircraft were grounded for several days. I remember it well, as I was living in Houston in those days, and it was a crippling blow.

They restarted in several days, with a much-contracted route network and, at first, $49.00 fares everywhere to kick-start the recovery of pax. Boy did it ever!

For a while there, every time my company would buy me tickets to travel (which they bought in Chicago, and sent along with stern notices attached that I would be responsible for any "extra cost" if these "specially-negotiated fare" tickets were changed), I was able to exchange the coach tix (inevitably, on AA) for First Class on CO. Them was the days.

No CO never had a complete shutdown. In 1983 when our company filed chapter 11 only the domestic system was shut down. All international flights were still operating.

I think when CO filed for Chapter 11 in 1983, it did, briefly, though, and was back in the air within a week. The second filing, in 1990, did not lead to any shutdown. The only other time CO significantly cut service was in 1993 when it closed its Denver hub at Stapleton and shifted planes to beef up operations in Newark, Houston, and Cleveland to feed the CALite operation.

ContinentalEWR

As Laxflyer said, only the domestic system shut down in '83 (four years before I got hired). The system was shut down, and the Union contracts torn up. Many workers were brought back to work 4 days later at as much as 50% less pay, and many never got to that pay level agian.

To say that "Continental never shut down, only the domestic system did...the international system kept flying..."

Uh, I would definitely constitute that as a "shut down" For 90% of Continental passengers, the airline was not operating, and they didn't know when it was going to be again, period.

Travis

Sorry Travis but a shutdown is a complete shutdown of the system. Even if your only flying between IAH and HOU the airline is still considered operating. The question was asked if we ever had a shutdown and the answer is no. Also at the time Lorenzo made it clear that the domestic system even though operating on a much smaller scale would resume flights within a week. Alpha 1 is correct. It was four days later when domestic service was resumed to about 25 cites.

We're getting into splitting-hairs territory, but technically Alpha-1 and Laxflyer are indeed correct, Trav.

The term "shutdown" as implied here would mean a total systemwide shutdown of all the carrier's operations. While CO's domestic operations were affected, their international ones were not. Therefore, it was not a total systemwide shutdown.

However, if we really wanted to split hairs, I suppose one could argue that the first few days following the attacks on September 11, 2001 could be viewed as a systemwide shutdown of all flight operations...but then again, all U.S. flag carriers were affected in a similar manner.