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Continental Airlines Halts Houston Flights, Plans to Resume Service Sunday

Posted on: Friday, 23 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Sep. 23--The last flights in and out of Houston before Hurricane Rita hits will be ending at midday today, following a frenzied travel crush Thursday.

Continental Airlines is flying a reduced Houston schedule today and plans to cease all flights at Houston at noon, resuming Sunday morning.

"We are doing our best to evacuate as many people as we can until we are forced to suspend operations," Larry Kellner, chairman and chief executive, said Thursday. All of today's Continental flights that had not been canceled were sold out, the carrier said.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines was operating a normal schedule Thursday but experienced some problems because of the number of passengers leaving Houston, spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said. Southwest, which has 140 flights daily out of Houston's Hobby Airport, had flights for today scheduled until noon, she said.

"The lines are long at the airport and we have had a few delays, but we are working to get our customers through as quickly as possible," she said. "We are asking them to arrive at the airport early."

American Airlines, which substituted bigger jets to serve Houston on Thursday to carry more passengers, canceled all its flights today and Saturday.

"We plan to come back in Sunday afternoon, depending on what happens," American spokesman Tim Wagner said Thursday.

Lufthansa on Thursday announced it was canceling two flights scheduled for today between Houston and Frankfurt, Germany.

Continental said it flew hundreds of employee volunteers and TSA security screeners from Cleveland, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York and San Antonio. Theyose workers were used to supplement staff at the airport and replace workers who were subject to mandatory evacuation orders.

"The supplementary staff have been brought to the Houston airport with Continental's commitment to fly them home before the hurricane hits," the carrier said in a prepared statement.

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CAL, LUV, AMR, LHA, DLAKY,

Source: Houston Chronicle

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