FlyerTalkers in the hundreds recently gathered in Houston for what turned out to be one of their biggest events of all time, and the first ever hosted by an airline.

The story behind the event goes something like this: While having dinner with new Continental CEO Larry Kellner, FlyerTalker Dean Burri (AKA cigar man) brought up the topic of http://www.FlyerTalk.com, and suggested to Kellner he utilize the online community to gain valuable information about the real wants and needs of frequent flyers. Kellner was skeptical, to say the least, and bet Burri that there wasn’t more than 60 OnePass members on FlyerTalk. It then became a challenge for a meeting in Houston and needless to say, Kellner underestimated the interest such an event would generate and was forced to pony up in the form of hosting the event. (FlyerTalk ranks near the top 5,000 Web sites in the world for traffic and trails only Disney in rankings for the most popular travel-related bulletin boards)

Being a good sport, Kellner made the most of it, and was in attendance for much of the event, as were many other senior members of the Continental management team, chatting and sharing ideas with FlyerTalkers. By all accounts, Kellner was as impressed with the FlyerTalkers as they were with him.

“The FlyerTalk group gives me especially good insight into how our various services are perceived by a key group — frequent flyers,” Kellner said. “We regularly take the input we receive and ask ourselves what we should be doing better or changing. This is one of the reasons I think we have been so successful in the marketplace.”

First-hand details of the event are available in any of several threads in the Continental OnePass forum on FlyerTalk.com.

Kudos to Continental and Dean Burri (AKA cigarman) for a spectacular event.