Although there were Continental Boeing 777’s that were converted to the new United Airlines livery first, this aircraft (N222UA) was the first United Boeing 777 to be painted in the new Continental livery. A special thanks to Gordon Werner for pointing this one out.

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37 Comments

I’m surprised they don’t that the rudder off to paint/balance it. It is pretty cool to see the old paint just fall off to the ground like that though.

Tony,
The reason they can’t used the chemical paint peel process on the rudder is because the 777 has the composite (carbon fiber) rudder.
Captain Ross “Rusty” Aimer (UAL Ret.)
CEO
My Aviation Expert, LLC

It’ll be interesting to see how long it’ll take for UA planes to get repainted…the CO planes only require a touchup, but UA’s a complete repainting. I say this because UA changed their livery several years ago, but they still have a bunch of their A/C in the old, gray livery, which is getting a little long in the tooth. Never did like the gray livery–made the planes look dingy.

Glad to see this was one of the “Malevolent skies” gray planes getting painted–the sooner those go away, the better.

Painting an airplane is such a cool process.

Yuck. Terrible, terrible. The CO livery is the worst in the skies, and the “new” merger livery is so cheap and disgusting. Poor UA 🙁

Chris, I concur. And they have already destroyed 3 UA 777s, thankfully at least two of them were old livery. And this plane is in international plane with old seats, yet they chose not to do the interior.

Death to the Tulip! Long live the Globe!

Death to Continental! I hope they enjoy being friends with TWA, Eastern, and America West. They’ve deserved death for a long time. Your precious globe will die some day when Jeff Smisek is ousted and the Tulip returns.

Lol @ The United Fanboy.

I don’t particularly enjoy either the United or Continental liveries; but I especially hate the United gray livery.

I know that United has been terrible about painting the gray-skies planes into their once-new blue/white colors and especially horrible about maintaining them (I recall a pic of one of the new white tulip UA 737s that already had gray paint showing through), so it leads me to ask if UA just chose the CO livery because it would be cheaper to repaint the titles than the whole plane, and this meant they didn’t need to spend time or money coming up with a whole new brand and repainting every plane in the fleet.

I think UA will be hurt in the long run by merging the logos and liveries, keeping CO’s colors with the UA name.

In the long run I feel like it would be a better business decision to either stick with one airline’s brand or another, or create a new logo/branding for the merged airline. That’s just my 2cents though.

All they would’ve had to do is paint the CO planes into UA livery and the remaining Grey livery planes that would have required paint regardless. The UA livery looks way better than the Battleship Grey and especially the CO colors.

sweeeeeeeeeeet! any idea where this was done? VCV?

I think the ‘new’ livery (just CO’s paint job with United painted over Continental’s name) was a carrot to coerce CO employees and stockholders to go for the merger (and Taylor, I think you’re right–it’s a cheap way to go). The livery will be changed in 3 years, after everyone forgets about the merger.

Northwest people didn’t get to keep their livery and logo. Infact, they got nothing. CO people kept their CEO, their main hub is the largest in the network, and they’re still taking on new planes. What did UA people get? A headquarters? A name that’s basically ruined now because they lost their complete brand identity and their iconic logo that’s been flying for close to 40 years?

The livery will hopefully be short lived and the Tulip makes a fast return.

Death to the Tulip, a symbol of a very bad airline.

DEath to Continental, a symbol of an extremely overrated airline with delusional fanboys like yourself. The Tulip is a better mark. Period.

bluecrushkid

No excitement in a globe and UNITED on a white plane. Sickening

IAH-flyer

From what I’m hearing in my travels on Continental and United, this is going to be far from a simple merger.
For some strange reason, the United Employees are happy for change, the Continental employees are fighting the thought of combining synergies. I really thought it would be the opposite. Hope I’m not caught in the cross-fire!

I feel the scheme has merits , but it lacks originality . The old United colors were just not eye-catching ! Too much white now , with no break-up in the pattern .

6 lbs per gallon of paint, that’s a lot of access weight. Think they would learn from American.

Brian Hackett

Man I won’t name names but some people here are lame and haven’t got a clue. Continental is 3 times the better airline than United. Both Livery’s UA has the nasty grey&blue, and this latest paint scheme is a joke, it does not even cover the fact UA is a bad Airline. let’s not forget UA was corting CO. I don’t really care to much for the CO paint scheme but it is a lot better than what you put out. as far as Smisek yes I have issues with him most think he is a sellout, after all United did to Co in the 80’s, United was on a collison course with History and should has disappeared!!!!

Too bad it was Smisek who corted UA this time around and wanted to merge, calling Tilton on his birthday no less. And sorry, UA is a GREAT airline. They’ve improved a lot over the years and were never as bad as they were made out to be. The COol-Aiders need to get a clue. Their airline has been overrated and on serious decline for years. They needed this merger more than United.

LS in Houston

It’s too late to debate whether CO and UA should’ve merged… it’s a done deal now. As a 27 yr CO employee, I have a great deal vested in CO and want to see this merger work. Of course, I remember the “torque CO” days of UAL in Denver, and lived through 2 CO Bankruptcies and 1 Eastern Airlines Bankruptcy … so Chapter 7 and 11 are not an option for us. We (CO) were doing fine on our own but our future was uncertain … we needed to be bigger, more routes and more planes! And UAL needed a leadership team that could get it back on the right track and keep it profitable. Hopefully, together, we’ll be the industry leader in quality (CO brings to the table); innovation (UAL brings this); great customer service (both airlines are capable of this) and a safe and reliable airline (both UAL and CO continue to lead all carriers in on-time and reliability. So we have the makings of a great airline but we can’t be divided .. or we’ll fail.To my new friends in Chicago .. welcome aboard and let’s make this work!! We both need it to be successful.

That’s a great attitude. I hope more CO employees start feeling the same way. In my experience it hasn’t been that way unfortunately.

Patty Haley

Luckily I dont plan flying on either. My boyfriend has have Navion that we fly all around the country. 🙂

I fly Southwest when I need to.

I think that all of United Airlines Boeing 777s have been painted now. And now they can be painted in Continental colors and still be called United 🙂

United Virtual Airlines

James Williams

I have no connection with United what so ever.
In fact I worked for one of United’s competitors.
I thought the blue and grey livery was one of the classiest in the industry and a vast improvement over the old blue and white.
It’s truly sad to see it replaced with what is mostly one of the least attractive liveries.

Don’t care what it says, but from a distance it looks like a Continental plane… and that’s what the public will see. It’s a boring, uncreative, merger compromise that has already divided employees. One of the worst paint scheme ever. United lives on and so should the tulip! First big mistake Jeff.

We have started take into consideration personal bankruptcy as my onle option at this time. I am a little unclear about The difference between chapter 7 and 13 bankruptcy. I have a home in Florida as well as own a family house but I’ve got no earnings to help make any type of payments at this time. I would want a few expert advice if anyone might share some insight depending on my situation.

What year did United switch paint scheems for their 777’s? Going from dark gray to shiny white, with the large logo?

Peter Apsey

From 2001 but only 20 where painted in the Blue/White tulip scheme

Peter Apsey

Would anyone have some info on why United Continental Holdings opted to re-paint the fleet of 777’s in the new livery before any other aircraft type in the fleet, shame really as the 777’s looked so good in the Tulip livery,

Interestingly out of the 52 777’s that United had prior to the merger, only 20 aircraft where re-painted in the Blue Tulip livery whilst the remaining 32 stayed in the Battleship Grey Colour scheme before being done in the lame Globe livery

VIDEO: United Airlines Boeing 777 Painted in New Livery | AirlineReporter.com | Blogging on the airline business
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