Missing image

New livery and seats at Continental

Posted by on in | 31 Views | 3 Responses

Following a month in the shop at Hong Kong, Continental’s first Boeing 777-200 to be painted in the Star Alliance livery scheme arrived in Newark today, completing its first revenue flight in the new colors.  This is the second plane to be done up in the new livery, following on the heels of a 757-200 that was painted in advance of the party celebrating Continental joining the alliance at the end of October.

The somewhat disappointing news for Continental passengers is that the plane, N78017 aka Ship #17, did not also receive the new lie-flat seats in its BusinessFirst cabin while in for the paint job.  It apparently has to do with needing a delay in final certification of the first plane flying around with the seats before the others can be converted.  The good news is that another plane, Ship #15, rolled into the maintenance hangar and is being fitted with the new seats now.

Speaking of the new seats and 757s, word is that the first 757-200 to receive the lie-flat BusinessFirst seats is also being worked on right now, with a hopeful return-to-service date of prior to Christmas.  It is Ship #133, aka N17133, and it is currently undergoing the refit in Houston.

Good stuff!

Related Posts

Never miss another post: Sign up for email alerts and get only the content you want direct to your inbox.

3 Responses

  1. Oliver
    Oliver at |

    I assume it didn't actually take a month to paint the aircraft? 😉

  2. GoldenToque
    GoldenToque at |

    I heard the painters kept painting Skyteam, and had to use a lot of whiteout, and that was the cause for the elay 😉

  3. Seth
    Seth at |

    Too much whiteout might also explain the coloring on the finshed product. 😉

    Best guess is that there were other (heavy?) maintenance tasks being performed in addition to the paint job but it is really just a guess. The good news is that each of the subsequent month-long cycles should spit out a re-fit plane, getting them pretty much done with the conversion by the end of 2010.