Jaunted

Now with the new United, Leading Edge Aviation Services is doing their best to get things completed quickly, as United wants all the Continental planes updated by the end of 2011 and all the old United planes updated by the end of 2012. The newly combined airline isn’t revealing how much they’re planning to spend on the new paint jobs, but we expect it’s a lot more than taking your car to Maaco. A fresh coat of paint on a 777 can cost up to $200,000, and painting a plane as large as a 747 can take up to a week and create around 180 empty gallon paint cans.

Fancy aluminum paper and tape are used to protect all the plane’s sensitive bits and pieces, and things are stripped down to clean off the old colors before putting on the shiny new stuff. There’s primer, base color, and all kinds of different extras depending on how complicated the job gets.

The company is expecting next year to be its biggest yet—both work-wise and money-wise—but we want them to consider one more thing. How about some tours to raise a little bit more money? We’d love to watch through the windows as the 60-foot high machinery works its way around the plane spraying paint as it goes. They could even charge a little bit extra when they do a special livery—like a sports team or something—we’d certainly fork over a few bucks! Too bad the airlines wouldn't be cool with us taking a sneak peek.

[Photo of the new United livery in the cold: Jaunted]