Continental and the rest

I wrote this a while back while flying on yet another delayed flight. It's time to post it.

So this is the second time in recent years that I’ve flown continental. I’m at 37 thousand feet about two hours behind schedule. At least I found out about it before leaving the house, so I was able to get some more rest before getting to the airport.

Anyhow, the reason for the delay was the flight crew needing to rest. My flight back from Trinidad, also on Continental, was delayed for 3 hours for precisely the same reason. Apparently, they don’t have as many pilots as I would think they’d need.

I specifically picked a 7:10 AM departure to avoid traffic and a security line, but they dropped it back by a couple hours anyhow. Had I known that, I would have just taken the 10 AM flight and planned on the crowding. My problem isn’t with their head count, but with their inability to properly schedule flights. Since two thirds of my flights with them have been delayed for the same reason, I assume that they do that all the time.

Either get more pilots, or properly advertise your schedules.