ContinentalEWR From United States of America, joined May 2000, 3762 posts, RR: 15 Posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 3 days ago) and read 2003 times:
Continental established a hub, if I am not mistaken, at Newark International Airport (now known as Newark-Liberty International) in 1986 following its decision to acquire defunct PeoplExpress Airlines. The airline's terminal, "C" opened in 1988 and was dedicated by Frank Lorenzo (there is a plaque that commemorates this on the wall near the elevator to the Presidents' Club in Concourse C1).
Does anyone know how EWR developed into a hub for Continental? When did EWR see dramatic traffic increases? Was Terminal C originally intended for PE?
MasseyBrown From United States of America, joined Dec 2002, 4723 posts, RR: 7 Reply 1, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 1968 times:
If you want to be a nitpicker, for reasons known only to accountants, PE actually acquired CO and then changed its name to Continental Airlines Inc.
STT757 From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 16255 posts, RR: 52 Reply 2, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 1942 times:
Actually it first started with CO's merger with sister carrier NY Air, NY Air had substantial service out of Newark to Florida, DC, etc.
CO was forced to sell the NY Air Shuttle to Pan Am.
NY Air's largest operation was out of Washington Dulles, in between the CO/NY Air Merger and the PeoplExpress merger CO was operating a hub at Washington Dulles.
They even had a 737-300 flight to LAX from IAD.
When they merged with PeoplExpress they closed the IAD hub and moved everything to EWR, however Terminal C (which PeoplExpress was renovating) was not ready so between '87 and late '88 CO operated out of B2 and B3 gates of Terminal B along side sister carrier Eastern. The B2 and B3 concourses are now the IAB at EWR.
When Terminal C's renovations were complete CO moved their operations from Terminal B to C, that's also when they took over Eastern's ATR feeders. Many of which operated out of EWR in Eastern colors for a few years.
CO themselves never operated from the North Terminal, they moved to Terminal B right after the merger, then Terminal C when it was completed.
Terminal C was actually finished in the late '70s but sat vacant except for a two gate stub concourse that was the IAB for EWR and also served PeoplExpress's 747 flights to LA, OAK, and DEN. It orginally had the oval concourses which were later torn down for two linear ones.
I remember picking my aunt and Uncle up at EWR around '86-'87 when they were flying in from London on Virgin Atlantic. They arrived at Terminal C which was vacant at that time, back then Virgin arrived at C and departed from UAL's gates in Terminal A.
The CO hub at EWR was probably really established in '89, that's when Eastern entered bankruptcy and CO picked many of their EWR flights. CO took over Eastern's flights from EWR-Bermuda, St.Thomas, St.Croix.
1989 is also when SAS moved to EWR and formed a partnership with CO, 1989 is also when the Port Authority began work on a new IAB to replace the 2 gate stub at Terminal C.
After Eastern declared bankruptcy they dropped many EWR flights and no longer needed two concourses at Terminal B, so the PA took B3 the Concourse closest to Terminal C and renovated that into a 9-10 gate IAB which drew new airlines to EWR like BA, AF etc.
After Eastern shut down the PA took over Eastern's other Concourse B2 and added that to the IAB, in 1996 they built that huge building inbetween B2 and B3 which serves all Customs, Immigration services.
Acvitale From United States of America, joined Aug 2001, 921 posts, RR: 13 Reply 3, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 1941 times:
Below was posted just after the previous post which is essential the same but far more detailed. MasseyBrown is incorrect.
MasseyBrown,
I am fairly certain that statement is absolutely incorrect.
Texas Air International a small DC-9 operator ended up acquiring the following airlines:
Continental
New York Air
Frontier
Eastern
and
People's Express
Texas Air merged Frontier and People's Express operations into Continental and then Continental absorbed the remaining carriers at different points in Lorenzo's spree. The only carrier not absorbed was Eastern which filed bankruptcy and New York Air which when absorbed by Eastern was forced to sell the New York-Washington-Boston shuttle to Pan Am whom later sold it to Delta.
People's Express was never the acquirer of Continental. Texas Air International had become the holding company and the acquirer of all the carriers.
FDXmech From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 3251 posts, RR: 38 Reply 4, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 21 hours ago) and read 1843 times:
>>>CO themselves never operated from the North Terminal, they moved to Terminal B right after the merger, then Terminal C when it was completed.<<<
Ah, but they did. The Continental Boston, Washington Shuttle remained segregated from the main Terminal B operation (chaos) for quite some time.
Timz From United States of America, joined Sep 1999, 6466 posts, RR: 8 Reply 6, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 1789 times:
A C Vitale said NY Air was absorbed by Eastern?
How finished was Terminal C when it looked like the other terminals? Did it have all three "concourses" (for lack of a better word)? Did they all have jetways?
ContinentalEWR From United States of America, joined May 2000, 3762 posts, RR: 15 Reply 7, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1726 times:
ConcordeBoy,
Continental operates flights to Atlanta, Chicago (O'Hare and Midway) and to Dallas/Ft. Worth from Terminal A. The move occured in late 1999 to make more gates in Terminal C available for mainline Continental flights. ATL/ORD/MDW/DFW generate less connecting traffic for CO and are more O and D and as a result, the airline felt it would be less inconvenient to pax to move those flights to A.
In addition, I suspect Continental acquired those gates to limit some competition out of EWR. I believe some of the gates in A it now uses are ex-Kiwi Airlines gates. They became available after Kiwi was liquidated and at the time CO moved the flights to A, Newark was at capacity, with chronic ground delays and limited gates. C3 had not been finished yet (the expansion to C).
ContinentalEWR From United States of America, joined May 2000, 3762 posts, RR: 15 Reply 8, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1719 times:
It is also interesting to note that Continental/Texas Air Corporation actually owned what is now the US Airways terminal at New York's LaGuardia Airport. The Eastern Air Shuttle operated out of what is now the west end of that terminal but construction on the expanded facility began in 1988-89 and was eventually completed in 1992. Continental leased the terminal out as part of its 1990 bankruptcy reorganization and as a means of divesting what was thought to be overlapping assets with the Newark facility, which was emerging as the airline's Northeast hub.
ContinentalEWR From United States of America, joined May 2000, 3762 posts, RR: 15 Reply 9, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1733 times:
Actually, Continental inherited the LGA terminal from Eastern. Eastern and CO operated as sister carriers from 1989 to Eastern's demise in 1991.
My original OnePass member card had the logo of both carriers. OnePass was actually Eastern's frequent flyer brand, not Continental's, but CO kept it and merged it with its own.
Continental's transatlantic service out of Newark began to expand in 1992 when Frankfurt and Madrid were added. In 1993, Munich was briefly added but it did not last. Manchester also came on line in 1993. The next big wave of expansion across the pond began in 1997 and continued right up until March 2003, when the Newark-Geneva route was launched.
Cody From United States of America, joined May 1999, 1918 posts, RR: 10 Reply 10, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1662 times:
Let me just add a personal experience I had with Continental at the very beginning of 1987. My family and I were supposed to be on PEOPLExpress from BWI to West Palm Beach with a connection through Newark. Texas Air had just acquired PEOPLE's and merged them and New York Air into Continental in the quickest merger ever. It was so quick that Continental employees in EWR were still wearing PEOPLExpress uniforms. Some (a very few) may have had Continental name tags. Anyway, everything at BWI was normal except the plane was in full New York Air colors even though we were scheduled on PEOPLExpress and they were calling it Continental. Oddly enough the interior was full Continental including the meatball logo on the bulkhead. Then we arrived in EWR. To this day I think it was the North Terminal but I was only 12 so I could be wrong. But this I will never forget. The terminal was clogged so full of people that you couldn't move. Everything was delayed even though the weather was fine. None of the employees had any answers. All the customers were screaming at each other and the agents. I remember people seemed to move together in waves around the terminal to the television monitors. The monitors showed about 50 destinations and the status of each was changing by the second. Delayed, On-time, delayed, cancelled. Then when everything finally reached a boiling point and everyone was ready to kill each other the monitors just shut off and the screens were black. Then you would hear this gigantic "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" from all the people. It was like Black Friday on Wall Street. Somehow we finally got on a former PEOPLExpress 727 and once on board they changed it's destination so everyone got off. Then they canceled West Palm Beach, then they said, "no wait it's leaving out of gate so and so." Eventually we made it to West Palm, but that is a trip I will never forget. Anyway getting back on topic I think that was March of 1987 and at that time I would almost bet Continental was in the North Terminal.
STT757 From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 16255 posts, RR: 52 Reply 11, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1639 times:
FDXmech
Your right I forgot about the "Super Shuttle" flights from the North Terminal.
"How finished was Terminal C when it looked like the other terminals? Did it have all three "concourses" (for lack of a better word)? Did they all have jetways?"
It was pretty much the same as Terminals A and B except there was only two Oval concourses instead of three, the third concourse was a two gate stub for International arrivals. It was pretty much complete but after sitting vacant for 10 years PeoplExpress made the wise choice of totaly renovating the Terminal.
I have a PeoplExpress in flight mag I got on board a flight from Washington which has a two page piece with renderings of the new Terminal.
The people who worked on Terminal C did a fantastic job, the linear concourses at Terminal C are still very modern. During the recent expansion of Terminal C they really didn't need to do that much work to them. Just some touch ups, and the atrium airside corridor connecting concourses C1-C3.
CO aquired the gates in Terminal A-2 Concourse from UAL around '97, UAL had owned then leased them to US. It was actually a trade, CO gave some of their unused gates at LAX's Terminal 6 to UAL in exchange for the Terminal A gates at EWR.
The Terminal A gates were orginally supposed to be for Latin American flights, all CO flights to Latin America were originaly planned to operate out of Terminal A. For what ever reason they decided to go with the Atlanta, Dallas, and Chicago flights instead.
STT757 From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 16255 posts, RR: 52 Reply 12, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1627 times:
It had to be Terminal B, if you look at this picture you will see a NY Air 737-300. Behind it if you look carefully you will see two more Gold CO tails, this picture was taken during the time CO was operating out of Terminal B.
It was taken in '87 at Terminal B, only CO's "Super Shuttle" flights operated out of the North Terminal.
STT757 From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 16255 posts, RR: 52 Reply 13, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1619 times:
Speaking of CO's Super Shuttle does anyone remember CO's Super Shuttle and the special boarding areas in C-2 for the flights to BOS and DCA.
They had those really nice couches with the end tables with lamps, plus the gate area ticket counters were much larger than the standard Terminal C counter. They even had a baggage belt so passengers could head straight to the gate and check their bags there.
Also my One Pass card is from '90, and has both the Eastern and CO logos on the back.
STT757 From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 16255 posts, RR: 52 Reply 14, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1615 times:
I have some pictures/postcards of EWR showing Terminal B with it's hodepodge of CO, NY Air and Eastern jets cramed together.
Boeingfan From United States of America, joined Aug 2001, 385 posts, RR: 1 Reply 15, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 16 hours ago) and read 1591 times:
For more detail check out the Texas Air annual reports published in 1987 (covering 1986) and 1988 (covering 1987.) They can be found in most larger city libraries. They include the "accounting history" of the Texas Air Corporation, owning the worlds largest airline network. There are great route maps of the carriers, photo's etc. Good PR document anyway.
In the Annual Reports, it starts with when Texas International Airlines purchased Continental, the establishment of a Low Cost Carrier (LCC) New York Air, to the purchase of PeopleExpress (PE) then cash less. PE purchase of the remains of Frontier then using code (FL,) to the purchase of Eastern Airlines.
The plan was to merge and re brand the whole thing together eventually to form the worlds largest and lowest cost air carrier. The EA unions really wanted unemployment more, so they choose to sit out of the plan, and went on strike, the rest is history. Texas Air really wanted Systemone, the global distribution system (GDS) from EA, so Frank Lorenzo won in the end.
Continental Airlines reservation automation remains with "Sonic" under an EDS management agreement. PeopleExpress had originally begun the concourse rebuild on Terminal C so they could move out of the old dated North Terminal. Check out the Annual Reports for Texas Air, they will tell the EWR and CO history as it is legally documented, with some PR spin.
MasseyBrown From United States of America, joined Dec 2002, 4723 posts, RR: 7 Reply 16, posted (10 years 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 15 hours ago) and read 1554 times:
All Continental's SEC filings contain the entry: "Former conformed name: People Express Airlines, Inc. Date of change [to Continental]: 19890726."
I take that to mean that the current surviving corporate carcass previously belonged to PE, no matter how the reports of who was buying whom read. As I posted, it probably only makes sense to the accountants.
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