Continental Airlines, Inc. (nyse: CAL) is a United States certificated air carrier. Based in Houston, Texas, it is the fourth-largest airline in the U.S. based on revenue passenger miles. Since 1998, Continental's marketing slogan has been "Work Hard, Fly Right."

Continental operates flights to destinations throughout the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific regions. It has more than 3,000 daily departures, serving 151 domestic and 120 international destinations and has 42,200 employees (as of March 2007). Principal operations are from its three hubs at Newark Liberty International Airport (in Newark, New Jersey), George Bush Intercontinental Airport (in Houston, Texas), and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (in Cleveland, Ohio). Continental Micronesia, a wholly owned subsidiary, operates routes around Micronesia from its hub at Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport on Guam and connects the Micronesian region with destinations in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Honolulu and Cairns, Australia.

Continental Airlines is a minority owner of ExpressJet Airlines, which operates under the trade name Continental Express but is a separately managed and publicly-traded company. Cape Air, Colgan Air, CommutAir, and Gulfstream International Airlines feed Continental's flights under the Continental Connection identity, as does Chautauqua Airlines under the Continental Express identity, although Continental does not have any ownership interests in these companies.

Since September 2004, Continental has been a member of the SkyTeam Alliance, in which it participates with Northwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Air France, Aeromexico, Alitalia and KLM; In addition to extensive code share arrangements with SkyTeam partner airlines, the airline also code-shares with Amtrak rail services to some cities in the northeastern United States, with US Helicopter which fly from Newark Liberty International Airport to Manhattan, and with SNCF French Rail to destinations in France. In 2008, Continental announced that it will leave SkyTeam and join Star Alliance.

Early history

Continental Airlines began service in 1934 as Varney Speed Lines (named after one of its initial owners, Walter T. Varney) operating out of El Paso and extending through Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe to Pueblo (Colorado). The airline started with the Lockheed Vega, a single engine plane that carried four passengers. The airline later flew other Lockheed planes, including the Lockheed L-9 Orion, the Lockheed Electra Junior, and the Lockheed Lodestar. It was renamed Continental on 1 July 1937 after a new owner Robert Six had taken a forty percent ownership with Varney's co-founder Louis Mueller. Six relocated the airline's headquarters to Stapleton Airport in Denver in October, 1937. Robert F. Six was one of the patriarchs of U.S. aviation and had a reputation as a risk-taking executive who presided over the airline largely forged in his image for more than 40 years.Serling, Robert J., Maverick: The story of Robert Six and Continental Airlines (ISBN 0-385-04057-1), Doubleday & Company, 1974.