Continental Airlines - Destinations

Destinations

Continental, together with Continental Express and Continental Connection, offered more than 2,400 daily departures throughout the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The summer 2008 schedule saw Continental serving 130 domestic and 132 international destinations.

Continental Airlines operated primarily a hub-and-spoke route network with North American hubs in Cleveland, Houston, and Newark, and a west Pacific hub in Guam. The majority of Continental flights were operated from its hubs, with a few exceptions (Seattle-Anchorage, Los Angeles-Honolulu, and Los Angeles-Havana, LaGuardia – Aruba). Some affiliated airlines used the Continental Connection name also operate flights not involving hubs, such as Gulfstream International Airlines, which operated intra-Florida and Florida-Bahamas services.

For almost 40 years, Continental operated a very large hub in Denver, Colorado, but took the decision to close that hub in 1995 immediately after the opening of Denver International Airport (D.I.A), which represented a significantly higher-cost operation than the former Stapleton Airport, which D.I.A. had replaced. The abrupt nature of this change came as a shock to Denver, which was experiencing dramatic growth. The void left by Continental's departure allowed the establishment of the "new" Frontier Airlines (a startup, rather than the original carrier of that name). Both Frontier and Southwest Airlines (which entered the Denver market after Continental's dehubbing) have expanded quickly to fill the vacuum created by Continental's closing of its Denver hub.

For the first forty years of its existence, Continental was a domestic airline; however, especially after the incorporation of Texas International routes, it has served more Mexican destinations than any other U.S. carrier since the mid-1980s.

Continental first entered the transatlantic market in April 1985, with the introduction of a Houston-London-Gatwick service. Long prevented from serving London-Heathrow because of the provisions of the Bermuda II agreement, Continental maintained its London services at Gatwick, where in 2007 as many as six flights a day were offered to Newark, Houston, and Cleveland.

In March 2008, an Open Skies Agreement between the U.S. and the European Union became effective, invalidating Bermuda II restrictions that had limited the number of carriers and cities in the U.S. that could serve London-Heathrow. In November 2007 Continental announced that new, nonstop, twice-daily service from its hubs at Houston-George Bush Intercontinental and Newark-Liberty to London-Heathrow would be offered; and this service was inaugurated on March 29, 2008. The service replaced existing frequencies to London-Gatwick and are offered with a combination of Boeing 777-200ER and 757-200 equipment, with flat beds guaranteed in the BusinessFirst cabin. Continental has grown its presence at London-Heathrow to seven daily flights; two to Houston-Intercontinental and five to Newark.

During the Vietnam War, Continental's extensive military charter operations established a presence in the Pacific region that formed the basis for the Air Micronesia operation. Service to Japan was initiated in the 1970s from Guam and Saipan, and by the late 1980s, nonstop service between Seattle and Tokyo was briefly offered with 747 equipment, soon to be replaced with a direct Honolulu-Tokyo (Narita) flight. Through the 1990s, Continental maintained a minimal presence in the long-haul trans-Pacific market, until the delivery of 777-200ERs in 1998 which saw the addition of nonstop Tokyo service from Houston and Newark. By 2007, Hong Kong and Beijing were added to the network, and in 2009 Shanghai was added, all from the Newark hub. Continental has served Australia in the past with DC-10 and Boeing 747 service from Hawaii; Continental withdrew from much of the Australian market, but continues Air Micronesia Boeing 737–800 services between Cairns and Guam on a 4x weekly basis. Beginning in June 2011, it initiated service to Hilo, Hawaii, providing that city the only nonstop air service to and from any destination outside the state of Hawaii.

Continental offered the most destinations of any of the U.S. carrier to India, Japan, Mexico, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and was the only U.S. airline that flew to the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Norway. Continental began service from Newark to Mumbai, India on October 1, 2007 making that city Continental's second Indian destination.