Re: Continental, 1st major US Airline to order the
Doug is right ... notice that additional aircraft (7E7s, 757-300s, and 737-800s) are tied to approval of wage and benefit reductions by the end of February. While growth is certainly good news, this growth is also a bribe to convince employee groups there's good reason to vote for the pay cuts.
The Delta-Continental merger rumors have flown around the industry since 1997 at LEAST. I don't see it happening anytime soon, certainly not in the present financial climate.
Szluka, PG-13 airline names aside, CO already has DBN and SNN layovers ... you've just got to be on the 757/767 to take advantage!
Matthew, some correction is important to your notes on the CO fleet. They have a number of 757-200s, 757-300s, 767-200ERs, 767-400ERs, and 777s. The 752, 762, 764, and 777 all do transoceanic service, the 753 does not ... it does high-density domestic routes. (I see it frequently at MCO and FLL.) With the exception of the 757-200s, all of these airplanes have been delivered BRAND NEW to Continental since 1998, including the 762s. There isn't really a big fleet gap there, nor could any of their widebodies be referred to even charitably as "aging" ... hell, the oldest 777 was delivered October 1998 (ship 001, "Gordon M. Bethune") and the 767s all came later!
2009 is about the soonest CO could take delivery of the 7E7, since the airplane has yet to be built or certified! I don't know the certification schedule but I don't think the airplane will be ready for customer deliveries until at least 2008. They can't have them just start showing up in IAH tomorrow.
As for going overseas on the 757, of course a widebody would be preferable. However, CO has specially-configured 757s for transatlantic service with fewer seats and the BusinessFirst cabin installed. And CO is hardly the first/only airline to use the 757 across the oceans ... many airlines use them on west coast to Hawaii routes that are nearly as long as EWR to western Europe, TWA used to do lighter Europe routes on the 757, many airlines fly them on 6 hour flights to South America (Peru, etc.), etc. Icelandair's entire transatlantic fleet is the 757 and their service is reportedly excellent. Don't knock it until you've tried it.
And trust me, I've done long-haul in coach before ... 747, 757, 767, A340 ... all the same when you're shoehorned in to one of those tiny coach seats. In fact, the 747, the largest of all the airplanes in question, was probably the least comfortable in coach!
