We arrived at the airport at 3PM Friday for our 5:10PM flight from Houston to Philadelphia. The weather was bad and we waited for 4 hours for our flight to finally board only to be told that there is no pilot available to fly the aircraft because he will exceed the limit for the number of flight hours (probably because plane was diverted and waited in another city for the weather to get better, that was just my assumption, no further explanation was provided by the flight attendant). We waited in line at the service center desk for another 2 hours, but the earliest flight we can get on was the next day to Newark. We were just lucky that a new segment was opened after all those before us in line were told there were no more direct flights until Monday and they were booked via other cities to get to their destinations. We decided not to fly anymore because arrival time would have made us miss the occasion we were supposed to attend, and we were going back home to Houston the next day. Customer service clerk was friendly and cancelled our reservation and made a note that we can rebook without penalties. Then we went down to the baggage claim area, waited on another line only to be told that our baggages made it to the next flight to Philadelphia and that we have to file a claim and then pick them up once they get located and flown back to Houston.
Flight delays due to bad weather are understandable but I am just frustrated that Continental does not have any contingency to find another crew to fly the plane in times like this. All we got are apologies after missing an important family affair and waiting hours for nothing, having to follow up and pick up our baggages, disappointed and tired kids, and all the other inconveniences.
And why do we have to pick up our baggages and make another trip to the airport when they should have known that our flight was cancelled so they should have not loaded our baggages in another flight the first place. If we took the Newark flight the next day, there is a possibility that our baggages will not also make it there anyway.
We have travelled to many places via Continental and so far this is our worst experience.
We had to drive another hour from the airport and we made it back home at 2AM Saturday. And the only good thing that happened is that the parking lot where we left our car did not make us pay!
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