Hiring Is Sign Continental Is on Path to Recovery

Continental Airlines has added a thousand employees this year at its Newark Airport hub, a company official said.

The hiring spurt is another sign that the Houston-based carrier, which lost money in four of the past five years, may be on the road to recovery. The company's goal is to break even this year.

New workers include pilots, flight attendants, customer service representatives and mechanics, said Jonathan Roitman, vice president in charge of the Newark hub.

The airline now employs 13,085 people at Newark Liberty International, where it is by far the dominant carrier, handling more than 60 percent of the traffic.

In a speech to members of the Regional Business Partnership in Newark, Roitman said the carrier added 15 international routes out of Newark in the past year and a half as it tries to expand its way out of a financial slump.

"We are growing like gangbusters at Newark," Roitman said. "Everybody has been called back from furlough. We had to go back to the street to hire."

Like other major network carriers, Continental placed thousands of workers on furlough soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks precipitated a steep decline in air travel. Now traffic has rebounded. Fare increases to offset higher fuel costs have taken hold, planes are flying nearly full, and congestion and delays are back.

Roitman said that over the past decade Continental has had the best on-time performance rate on average, network-wide, of any large hub-and-spoke carrier. But when responding to a question about recent delays at Newark he acknowledged that on-time performance at Newark has been poor lately, citing weather and air traffic control issues.

The Federal Aviation Administration is evaluating possible changes in the air traffic control system, which may help, he said.

"The puzzle is not solved," he said.

Meanwhile, he said the airline is working with federal security officials to revamp the international check-in system in Terminal C so passengers will no longer have to lug non-carry-on bags through screening stations after checking them in at Continental's baggage check.

The airline will continue to offer higher-priced, first-class cabins on planes with more than 50 seats.

And it will continue to offer "customer-pleasing amenities" such as blankets, pillows and meals, which some competitors have cut back on, he said.

Quoting former CEO Gordon Bethune, Roitman said, "You don't want to take too much cheese off the pizza."

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