Originally Posted by
fastair
It basicly guarantees that a plane can be furthur than 1 hour (original ETOPS) from a diversion point, but as engines have evolved, it has gone to 120 min, and 180 min. There are even proposals for a 240 min extension.
240 is already theoretically available, and the near future is no hard limit, just what the aircraft can do, limited by fuel and other systems (e.g., cargo fire suppression).
Originally Posted by
hawkxp
Can each airframe can have different ETOPS ratings on different days, baised on maintainence done?
Yes -- can have a lower ETOPS rating or no ETOPS rating, depending on what's broken.
Originally Posted by
bniu
Would ORD-PEK be considered an ETOPS route or not? I just flew it and we were over land for all but 50 miles over the bering strait which is less than 5 minutes of flight time. IMO, there isn't any pacific in this "transpacific" flight since we flew over Canada, alaska, russia, and then into Beijing.
ETOPS has nothing to do with water or land, it's about distance to airports where you could divert. If you're more than 60 minutes from an airport where you could divert, you're in an ETOPS region.
There are some airport pairs where the best route on a day-by-day basis might be ETOPS or non-ETOPS depending on the wind. Today's ORD-PEK is flying north of 84N (according to flightaware), definitely ETOPS, and the few others I randomly checked, while not going that far north, were still definitely ETOPS. I don't know what airports UA is approved to use for the 60-minute diversions, so don't know whether it's possible for them to sometimes fly non-ETOPS ORD-PEK, but I wouldn't count on it.