Times of India--Continental Flight

Newark flight finally leaves after two days

May 22, 2011, 11.21pm IST

New Delhi: Passengers of a Continental Airlines flight to Newark spent over 44 hours in the city after their flight got delayed due to a technical snag. The delayed flight CO83 was scheduled to depart from Delhi's IGI Airport at 10.50pm on Friday but finally departed around 6 on Sunday evening.

Dr Yog Raj Sharma, a passenger on the flight, said he and his family had been made to board and sat in the aircraft for about three hours before airline officials told them that the flight had been rescheduled for the next day. "The crew kept telling us that we would take off shortly but when even the air-conditioning stopped working, we were told that we would be shifted to a hotel as there was a technical problem with the aircraft. At 4am, we were shifted to a hotel in Vasant Kunj," said Sharma.

Ashish Pradhan, who had come to India with his wife for his sister's wedding and was scheduled to join work on Monday, said there was complete mismanagement on the airline's part as it kept lying to them about the flight's departure.

------------------------------I finally made it home Monday morning, no thanks to the staff from Continental in New Delhi.  They scheduled me to come home on Monday night.  When we arrived in Newark, the staff there at least had empathy for what had happened to us, and were wondering why we were not placed on flight 083 that had many open seats while we were in India.  That would have meant that they would have had to use some logic in New Delhi, but that is not the case.  We were left in unsafe conditions, while at the Delhi airport, and no one seemed to care.  Children were sleeping on the floor and no one even offered us water or food after 12 hours of being in the airport.  The staff refused to keep of abreast of what was happening.  The only thing they would announce was that we will be boarding in 10 minutes, and that never came to fruition.   Just trying to get on the buses that were transporting us to the hotel for the night left us in great danger.  People were scattered all over with no lines, and buses were coming and going at a good rate of speed, and the Continental staff was just standing there, doing nothing.  Someone will  get hit by a bus or have a heart attack, because they are unable to get their luggage and Continental/United will be sued.  We were told that they didn't want to get our luggage off of the plane because it was raining.  By the second day, passengers were outraged and said that they would not leave the airport until we received our luggage.  I will be in touch with Continental to see how they plan on compensating those of us who were stuck in Delhi due to a lot of negligence on their behalf.

CONTINENTAL AIRLINES LEAVES US STRANDED IN DELHI!!!

If I were not stranded in New Delhi, I would be home in Maryland with my family.  My flight was scheduled to arrive at the Dullas/Washington DC airport on Saturday at 7:25 in the morning.  It is currently 8:10 am,  Monday morning in New Delhi.  Last night our airplane was grounded for the second time and we still have not beenhave given  any explanation.  The Continental crew at the Delhi airport are completely incompetent and could care less about customer service.  It was total mayhem in section 3A of Delhi airport last night,  and it appeared that no one cared, and there was no upper management to be found anywhere on site.  After more than 30 hours of not even having a change of clothes passengers did convince airline officials to  at least have someone pull our luggage out from the airplane so that we would have a change of clothing.  That process did around 2 1/2 hours.

Prior to all of that, the buses came to pick us up at 5:30 on Saturday evening for a 10:15 flight.  Our hotel is at the most 15-20 minutes from the airport.  We arrived at Indira Gandhi Airport at 6:30, and left by 3:15 in the early morning hours.  We all first started to get a glimpse that something was not right, when the staff kept saying that we would be boarding in 10 minutes, and we saw the staff of Continental start laughing.  They were laughing because their was no plane to board.  The communication from the staff at the airlines was horrific.  They never keep us abreast of anything that was happening, but just continued the charade of saying that we would be boarding soon.   Finally, we became aware that the problem was never fixed from the night before.  They were in the process of trying to fix whatever was needed while we were in the airport.  After keeping us and stringing us along for hours, they finally made an announcement around 1 am, stating  that the flight was cancelled.  I started crying at that point, and a flight captain was trying to console me.  He told me that the plane was not safe to fly at all, but didn't get into many details, but said that a lot was wrong with the plane and he had no idea when that particular plane would be ready to fly again.

Several hours later we were told that a representative would be at our hotel at 5am to get everything settled and to make sure that all remaining passengers were on a flight home.  Well dummy me, still wanted to believe these numb-nuts, and I stayed up until 6 am, waiting for a representative.  No representative showed up, so I finally decided to get an hour of sleep.  I asked the staff at the hotel to give me a wake up call at 7, which they did.  I promptly put on the same clothes that I have been wearing for 36 hours and went to the lobby in hopes that I would see the Continental representatives, but all I saw was empty beautiful leather sofas.

The staff at The Grand, said they have not heard anything from Continental, nor has anyone come to the hotel.  It is now 8:40 am, and we have no idea when we are going home.  A number of people were able to allude the airport officials and book flights on Air France, and other airlines last night.  Once airline officials saw what was happening no one else was allowed to go back into the airport, so those of us trying to get another flight were just out of luck.  There are so many people with connecting flights and the flights back home are limited, so it appears a number of flights are already booked.  If anyone has suggestions please feel free to call The Grand at 91-11-2677 1234 and ask for Crystal Travis.