Continental Airlines - Fleet

Fleet

Continental's all-Boeing fleet consisted of four types (737, 757, 767, and 777) in ten variants, with two variants of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner scheduled to enter service in 2011. The company's daily aircraft utilization was usually at the top of the industry. The Boeing customer code for Continental Airlines was 7x7-x24. (e.g. 777-224)

As of September 2010, the Continental Airlines fleet consisted of the following aircraft with an average age of 9.5 years:

Continental Airlines was one of three carriers (with American Airlines and Delta Air Lines) to sign an exclusivity agreement with Boeing in the late 1990s. When Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas, the European Union forced Boeing to void the contracts. Both parties had been adhering to the terms under a gentlemen's agreement.

Continental was one of the first major airlines to fly the Boeing 757 on transatlantic routes. There have been some instances of range limitations on west-bound transatlantic flights due to strong headwinds resulting in a fuel stop which does not appear on the timetable, but these stops are not common. The use of the 757 with its smaller seating capacity allowed for "thin" routes (routes with less passenger traffic) to be economically viable. It allowed non-stop service from smaller cities, such as Belfast, Northern Ireland and Hamburg, Germany to the New York gateway. Previously, customers originating at these and similar cities needed to connect at European gateways like London, Paris or Frankfurt in order to travel to New York.

All of Continental's Boeing 737s and 757s had winglets.