Continental Airlines progress on fully lie flat business class install

Flightglobal reports that Continental Airlines has completed its installation of fully lie flat business-first seats in its 777 fleet.  This will be welcome, as the airline appears to have the best business class product of any North American airline, and also brings it closer in line to United (which is, after all, the same airline) which has fully installed its entire 747 and 767 fleet (but still only partially installed the 777 fleet).  Continental's website claims the 757 fleet have 68% installation (in a 2-2 configuration with 23" seat width but 58" pitch).  A seat map of the 757 is here.  Continental has earlier claimed that all flights to London Heathrow are with aircraft equipped with the fully lie flat seats.  However, it is important to note that none of the Boeing 767-400ERs are equipped with the lie flat seats, but rather fairly old fashioned recliners seen here.   As can be seen below, they are rather impressive seats, all facing forward, with adequate width and privacy.  They remind me of what the American Airline ones might be like, if they had more pitch and went fully flat.

Continental BusinessFirst fully lie flat seats.

The full description of these seats is here.  They are 6'6" (198cm) long, 22" wide and 60" pitch between rows, and in the 777 are in a 2-2-2 forward facing configuration as seen here in this seat map. 

The previous product varied considerably.  The old 757 recliners that are being replaced are depicted here. The 777s had an angled almost flat type of seat still depicted on the Continental website.

For some time US carriers have always been seen as well behind Europe, Asia and Australasia in having the best hard product, but of those carriers Continental has been highly rated on soft product.  Continental's new seats make it more competitive than most continental European carriers (only Swiss, Iberia and Finnair have fully lie flat products outside the UK).   It is a chance for Continental to ensure its entire experience makes it a serious rival for non-US carriers.   The question is whether the merged United/Continental can meet those standard or whether the haphazard soft product of United will win the day.

Continental says by July 2011 all of its 757s will be equipped with the new seats, but it will be July 2012 by the time the 767 fleet is fully equipped.

By contrast, United only has 6 out of 46 777s equipped with its new lie flat business class.  To be fair to United, its Suite Dreams website does indicate exactly all flights and routes that are equipped.