No Flight Attendants Absent From Work : Continental Flights Leave John Wayne on Schedule

Despite a threatened strike by Continental Airlines flight attendants, service was normal Monday at Orange County’s John Wayne Airport.

All five of the airline’s flights from Orange County to Denver departed on time, said Tom Newcomb, general manager of Continental’s Orange County operations. No flight attendants were reported absent from work.

“It’s totally normal,” he said. “There hasn’t been a strike. There hasn’t been any activity.”

The Union of Flight Attendants had said that a strike would begin at 7 a.m. Monday. Continental’s attendants have been working without a contract since 1983, when Frank Lorenzo, chairman of Texas Air Corp., took Continental into bankruptcy and abrogated union contracts.

Texas Air Corp. also owns Eastern Airlines, but the planned picketing by Continental attendants is not directly related to the strike by machinists and pilots that has all but shut down Eastern since March 4.

On Monday afternoon, UFA spokesman Jessie Bargas in Hawthorne said Continental attendants were not expected to picket in Orange County. Instead, pickets were expected at airports in Los Angeles, Newark, Honolulu, Denver and Houston.

Bargas said he hoped that attendants flying into Orange County would immediately walk off the job after landing.

But a Continental flight attendant boarding Flight 460 from Orange County to Houston said she hadn’t heard about a strike and was uncertain if she would take part.

“The only way I would have (participated) was if everybody was on strike,” said the attendant, who requested anonymity. “Too many people are wishy-washy about it.”

Passengers boarding the same flight also had not heard about the strike.

Bruce A. Surdin, 29, of Tustin said he was not surprised to learn that Continental is having problems. Surdin said he has become increasingly disenchanted with the airline. “I’ve had nothing but problems on Continental,” Surdin said.

But Helen L. Testerman, 69, of Westminster said she had flown on the airline for several years to travel to her home town in North Dakota. “I wouldn’t fly with anybody else,” she said.