We needed to create an atmosphere where people liked coming to work. If you ask them what they want and will pay extra for, you will get a single sheet of paper with requests. Continental started out as one of the smaller carriers in the United States, known for its limited operations under the regulated era that provided very fine, almost fancy . Make sure you know the difference. But those fixes were like trying to bail out the Titanic with a coffee can. One last thing before we get to the lessons. But we knew we couldnt listen to everything the customers in seat 9C had to say. 22 Years Ago: Air France Flight 4590 Becomes Concorde's Only Fatal Accident We also put in several programs to ensure that our coworkers would win when our investors did. Second, they had to be driven to get things done. (two gongs and sound of switch, followed by another switch and sounds likened to objects being moved)Pilot: (unclear, sounds like exertion)Pilot: (unclear, sounds like exertion)Pilot: (unclear, sounds like exertion)End of recording, The flight was chartered by German company Peter Deilmann Cruises. Continental | Book Our Flights Online & Save - Alternative Airlines Sure, its bound to make the shareholders very unhappy, but hiding the fact that you are about to run out of money is like resetting the fuel gauge when youre low on gas. They re-evaluated two factors that the BEA had found to be of negligible consequence to the crash, the unbalanced weight distribution in the fuel tanks and the loose landing gear. In fact, I think the word fun scares a lot of executives. In me, Gordon found a frustrated consultant who bristled at the slow pace of change in most companies. And to monitor the progress of our people plan, we decided to track turnover, sick leave, attrition, and on-the-job injuries. EVA Air is the airline's main competitor. But funyes. get people to their destinations on time and with their bags . The windshear was generated by the outflow from a thunderstorm which was over the aircraft's departure path. We went to work at full speed. (For more on Continentals performance, see the exhibit Climbing Again.) How did the reversal of fortunes happen? Flight 1713 bound for Boise, Idaho crashed on take-off during a snowstorm at Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. They represented approximately $3.5 billion of our $5 billion in debt and capitalized aircraft leases. It was nearly the deadliest aviation accident in history. Any effect on takeoff performance from this excess weight was negligible. [3]:155[30][BEA 5], The final report was issued on 16 January 2002. Compare Continental Airlines flight deals from all across the web. When we took off at last50 minutes latethe accumulated condensation flowed like a waterfall along the top of the baggage bins to the back of the airplane. . 1 Oct 2010. It was going to take hard work, but that didnt worry me. Finally, each corporate officer is assigned a city on the system. Continentals weekly voice-mails, monthly open houses, quarterly magazines, and semiannual videos shown at regional meetings all focused on talking with and listening to employees. Fly to Win was the market plan: we were going to build up our Houston, Newark, and Cleveland hubs, for instance, and expand our customer mix from backpacks and flip-flops to suits and briefcases. It remains the backbone of the companys strategy today. [26] Commercial service was resumed on November 7, 2001, after a 17M (24M today) safety improvement programme, until the type was retired between May (Air France) and October (British Airways), 2003. The reason tells you a lot about how people act when their companies are in a self-destructive mode. But a few minutes later, the creditors came to my office and asked me to come back in. The calls would often last half an hour or more. Calculated Risk: The crash of Continental Airlines flight 603 While two of the engines had problems and one of them was shut down, the damage to the plane's structure was so severe that the crash would have been inevitable, even with the engines operating normally. 26 May 1937. We learned that in one of the early cost-reduction programs, management had decided to clean the airplanes less frequently and to have the pilots clean their own cockpits. We'll let you know when the price of your flight goes up or down so you can book when the time is just right. Cheap Roundtrip Fares to Amsterdam from: (per person, including taxes and fees). I believed the pilots were getting a fair deal, and I said so. November 1985: Tyre burst on a BA plane leaving Heathrow, causing damage to the landing gear door and fuel tank. Continental Airlines CO Flight Status Tracker - Flightpedia And when you are an airline in a do-or-die situation, you dont exactly let your employees sort out strategy. Pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and gate agents manage the hotline. To this day, I cant understand why anyone would try to hide an impending cash shortage. "Pilot: "No time, no (unclear). After a while, when it became apparent we were going nowhere, I got up to leave the room. The foundation of any successfully run business is a strategy everyone understands coupled with a few key measures that are routinely tracked. To offer you a more personalised experience, we (and the third parties we work with) collect info on how and when you use Skyscanner. Continental was a case in point. I left to a standing ovation. A change in wind conditions created an 8 knot tailwind, which would have reduced the regulated takeoff weight to 180 tonnes, six tonnes below the actual aircraft weight. Continental airlines flight 55 - YouTube When I arrived at Continental, it was a mean and lousy place to work. Throwback: The Continental Airlines Flight That Landed At The Wrong Airport Some airlines still offer the flexible booking policies. We knew that the two of us could not save Continental on our own. and subsequent crash. Forgot the flight number? When in doubt, everyone knew it was advised just to let the customers fend for themselves. In our business, revenue comes from credit card receipts. In the summer of my junior year in high school, I mowed lawns from 6:30 a.m. until noon, delivered office furniture from noon until 6:00 p.m., and then baled and stacked hay until midnight. It sounded like a great idea, but I was worried we would raise expectations and then not be able to deliver. Continental Airlines - Incidents and Accidents - LiquiSearch Filter your search by airline. [42] Just before service resumed, the September 11 attacks took place, resulting in a marked drop in passenger numbers, and contributing to the eventual end of Concorde flights. Page 155: "In conclusion, nothing in the research undertaken indicates that the absence of the spacer contributed in any way to the accident on 25 July 2000", Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, "ASN Aircraft accident Arospatiale / BAC Concorde 101 F-BTSC Gonesse", "How Concorde Pushed the Limits Then Pushed Them Too Far Disaster and Aftermath", "Accident on 25July2000 at La Patte d'Oie in Gonesse (95) to the Concorde registered F-BTSC operated by Air France (REPORT translation f-sc000725a)", "F-BTSC Air France Arospatiale/BAC Concorde", "Metal Part Maybe Came From Continental Jet", "Accident on 25 July 2000 at "La Patte d'Oie" in Gonesse (95), to the Concorde, registered F-BTSC, operated by Air France (Preliminary report translation f-sc000725pa)", "The damaged hotel and the scorched field show the impact of the crash, CBS News", "French police and rescue service workers inspect the debris of the hotel and the crashed jet", "ANNEXE 2 Transcription de l'enregistreur phonique", Mori to send messages to Chirac, Schroeder over Concorde, "N13067 Continental Air Lines McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 cn 47866 / 149", "Air France grounds Concorde until cause of crash is known", "The Concorde belies those who foresaw its extinction", "Could Concorde ever fly again? We organized our solutions to those problems into a strategy that we called the Go Forward Plan. With little time and even less money to save the airline in 1994, Continentals leaders devised the Go Forward Plan, a four-part strategy focused on the fundamentals. Continental Airlines on Wednesday became the first U.S. commercial carrier to conduct a demonstration flight powered in part by alternative fuels, though large-scale use of such fuel is. Perhaps the ultimate manifestation of Continentals low-cost approach was CALite, the companys doomed low-cost airline-within-an-airline. A pilot came to the microphone to express how incompetent he felt management was and how Continental was once again making the wrong decision. But I would argue that people have fun at work when they are engaged, when their opinions are respected. They told the pilots that they should feel lucky that Continental finally had a senior management team that treated them with enough respect to deliver the bad newsas well as a good relocation packagein person. Now, strategic direction is always important, but I would make the case that it is particularly important during a turnaround. Its hub airports were in Cleveland Hopkins International . The aircraft's last scheduled repair had taken place on 21 July 2000, four days before the accident; no problems were reported during the repair. Page 159: "14h40m01s it can be deduced that, for the crew, the aircraft weight at which the takeoff was commenced was 185,880kg, for a MTOW of 185,070kg". It was our story and we were sticking to it (to borrow a line from a country-and-western song). Continental Airlines was an American airline headquartered in Houston, Texas. When I asked one mechanic why he had done this, he explained, When I go to Wal-Mart tonight, I dont want anyone to know that I work for Continental. His response still sends chills down my spine. In-Service Fleets carrying 89 aircraft, including 71 Passenger Jets/ 18 Freighters. To implement the plan immediately and in its entirety, we sold it to our coworkers with energetic zeal. Most companies that are in trouble, however, tend to develop a myopic focus on cost. It helps us remember your details, show relevant ads and improve our services. If not, we'll show you the next-best options, by price or journey length. [33][50], At the same time, charges were laid against Henri Perrier, head of the Concorde program at Arospatiale, Jacques Hrubel, Concorde's chief engineer, and Claude Frantzen, head of DGAC, the French airline regulator. You cant run a company from the executive suite of an office building anyway. When we made the offer, we were paying about $6 million per month to reaccommodate our customers on our competitors flights. Continental Airlines - Cheap Flights - Fly.com Yes. Gordon started the meeting by saying, Greg is going to take you through our plan to get this company back on track. )[33] This skewed the alignment of the landing gear because a strut was able to wobble in any direction with 3 of movement. Naturally, our cash-flow forecasts always came in lower than projected because revenue (and thus, credit card receipts) was overstated. The airline is operating the Hong Kong route since 1967, and operates in 161 destinations in 29 countries/districts . I sat the scheduling team down and started asking questions. 3. [14], The crew was trying to divert to nearby ParisLe Bourget Airport, but accident investigators stated that a safe landing would have been highly unlikely, given the aircraft's flightpath. In crisis situations, managers usually have limited time and financial resources. (It was later found in an Air France maintenance workshop. But the company was still sinking fast. Why dont we just charter you a Lear jet? Our goal was not only to apologize but also to explain what we were doing to fix the company. At takeoff, the DC-10 overran the runway at Los Angeles (LAX) when the takeoff was aborted as a result of a tire explosion; the resulting overrun resulted in a fire that engulfed the aircraft. United Airlines (UA / UAL) Subsidiaries / Group Airlines. Not mollified, the union president asked me to come to a meeting the pilots were having before my meeting with the entire airport staff. Will things suddenly look okay in the cockpit? Its an ego thing. October 1993: Tyre burst on a BA plane during taxi at Heathrow, puncturing wing, damaging fuel tanks, and causing a major fuel leak. When we took over, you probably couldnt find a single employee, even among senior management, who could tell you the companys strategy. According to a report in a British newspaper, by journalist David Rose, the crash had "more than one contributing factor, most of which were avoidable. Our workers receive 15% of Continentals profitswhich has worked out to be approximately 7% of their pay over the last two years. This cooled down the airplane all right, but it also caused condensation to build up on the inside roof of the aircraft. The airplanes interior had seven different color schemes, which I later found out was not uncommon. CONTINENTAL AIRLINES FLIGHT 1713 NOVEMBER 15TH, 1987 Dead Of Winter - Continental Airlines Flight 1713 X Pilot 130K subscribers Subscribe 124K views 4 years ago Thanks for watching. We also ordered new carpeting for all the airport terminals, and we launched a campaign to retire the meatballthat is, replace the old Continental logo, which was round, red, and ugly, with a blue globe with gold lettering. 4. Every quarter, we send a Continental Quarterly magazine to employees homes, and twice a year we do the same with a state-of-the-company video and recent press clippings. Priority bags are a big hit. The Continental jet dropped a strip of titanium alloy from its thrust reverser on the runway during takeoff. The on-time bonus I mentioned earlier made it clear that our employees would win when our customers did. Algae used in biofuel on U.S. jet test flight - NBC News Continental Airlines flight 1404, a Boeing 737-500, departed the left side of runway 34R during takeoff from Denver International Airport (DEN). In a turnaround situationor any business situation, for that matteryou cant afford to ask anything else. But there were others. Join the millions of customers that have used Fly.com to compare prices between hundreds of airfare providers. But if we could get every employee headed in the same direction, we had a chance. Photographs in the BEA report showed a smashed steel landing light, clipped by the aircraft, parts of which were probably ingested by engine number 1. And for me, it was a defining moment. Continental Airlines, also known as CAL was formed in 1959 by some retired Chinese Air Force officers in Taiwan. But honesty and the rest dont just sprout up like weeds in a cornfield, especially when there has been a long drought. In our case, that meant listening to the customers in seat 9C, the business travelers who book the aisle seats near the front of the plane. Over several bottles of wine, we wrote down everything that was wrong with Continental. People were incredibly frustrated and wanted to let us know how badly they had been treated. view 40 history. The official investigation found Flight 55 caused the crash of Air France Concorde Flight 4590 in Paris. . It was powered by four Rolls-Royce Olympus 593/610 turbojet engines, each of which was equipped with afterburners. . Employees couldnt possibly know the entire contents of the book. The Go Forward Plan wasnt complex. Ask the customer in seat 9C the right question. Thats where our focus was, and its a good rule for any turnaround. Continental Airlines also operate private bus services from airport in The United States to different areas which include California, New Jersey and Philadelphia. A single creditor could have blocked our restructuring. And they are right: saving Continental wasnt brain surgery. Did you know that there are no rearview mirrors on an airplane? Fare Calendars show the best prices over the next 180 days on 2000+ routes. No one in the company trusts them any more. RIP to all people that die in Air France Flight 4590=====song: https://youtu.be/cMkJDPvJxdkoriginal meme: https://youtu. Near collision with a Delta Air Lines Lockheed L-1011. We dont implement all of the suggestionsId say about one in ten is implementedbut we take each one seriously. The scenes in this video are from Air Crash Investigation documentary.Music: I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your HonorArtist: Chris ZabriskieNone Of Them Belo. As for improving reliability, we had to get two sets of folks talking to each other: those that wrote the flight schedules and those that ran the flight and airport operations. [45], French authorities began a criminal investigation of Continental Airlines, whose plane dropped the debris on the runway, in March 2005,[46] and that September, Henri Perrier, the former chief engineer of the Concorde division at Arospatiale at the time of the first test flight in 1969 and the programme director in the 1980s and early 1990s, was placed under formal investigation. Some of these managers had spent their careers in the airline business and some hadnt worked a day at an airline. But both David Bonderman of Air Partners (the LBO firm that owned the airline) and Gordon were pushing me to join. Gordon and I took the largest of those accounts. Chauve and Suaud gave detailed calculations, stating that without the retardation caused by the missing undercarriage spacer, the aircraft would have taken off 1684 metres from the start of the runway, before the point where the metal strip was located, although the BEA disputed this, saying the acceleration was normal. It would be cheaper. That route, along with other cash-draining flights, was soon eliminated, and 7,000 employees were let go.