Continental Airlines nears final day of its name

Next month, Houston-based Continental Airlines, with a hub operation in Cleveland, will begin fading into the distance as two carriers that have merged into the world’s largest airline become United.

Some planes still will bear the Continental name, until the company completes the task of repainting 700 aircraft that began when Continental and Chicago-based United Airlines merged in October 2010. Because of ongoing labor negotiations, flight crews from the two former airlines will continue to fly separately.

But passengers will book only United flights, earn frequent flier miles on United’s MileagePlus loyalty program, and queue up for check-in and boarding under United Airlines signs.

“We’re going to have one frequent flier program, we’re going to have one website, we’ll actually be one airline from our customers’ perspective, which is really valuable to the customers and will give them much better customer service,” said Jeff Smisek, CEO of United Continental Holdings, the parent company. “Many of the things customers have issues with today will disappear once we have a single passenger service system.”

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Smisek said it will be the first time United and Continental will appear to customers as a single airline the company refers to as “the new United.”

The change will take place during the first week of March, though the company declined to specify the exact date.

A spokeswoman was hesitant to set an official timetable for the disappearance of Continental, which traces its origins to the 1930s and has been headquartered in Houston since 1982.

But the integration of the passenger service system is the biggest component left to the joining of the two airlines. They technically began operating as one carrier at the end of November after the Federal Aviation Administration granted a single-operating certificate.

From the perspective of passengers, however, United and Continental have remained separate airlines.

They still book tickets through separate websites and separate reservation phone lines answered by Continental- and United-specific agents.

But in March, calls to both airlines’ existing toll-free reservation lines — which will stay in place, at least in the beginning — will go to a single team of agents.

The advertised reservation number will be 1-800-United1.

Continental’s website, www.continental.com, will route visitors to www.united.com.

Technical glitches

Other merged airlines have experienced glitches when integrating reservation systems, but Smisek said the company has had four “full-scale dress rehearsals” and is confident the changeover will go smoothly.

Smisek said issues discovered during the first three rehearsals were fixed and “all systems were go” during the fourth.

As a precaution, he said, the company will reduce the number of flights during the changeover period “to take some of the load off the airports themselves in case there are any kind of slower processing times so that we don’t inconvenience the customers.” A spokeswoman said the reduction will not be significant enough to affect service.

Smisek said the company is on target to achieve merger-related savings of up to $1.2 billion by 2013.

But the integration won’t do much to quell customers’ most consistent complaint: Higher ticket prices.

“The bottom line is that more mergers lead to higher fares,” said George Hobica, president and founder of Airfarewatchdog.com. “Not astronomically higher fares but definitely that’s the whole point.”

Hobica said the merger was essential to each airline’s financial health and that passengers who have frequent-flier miles with both companies will see their total mileage combined.

Smisek hailed the merger as a financial success during a recent event where he handed out profit-sharing checks to 20 employees.

Overall, the company distributed $265 million in profit-sharing to its employees. Eligible employees received 5 percent of their annual salary.

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