Originally Posted by Vulcan
Not sure this is 100% true. I seem to remember a UA 777 lost an engine enroute AKL-LAX and had to detour over 3 hours on one engine to HNL. It's pretty certain that there is the range for AKL, assuming a curve in the flight towards HNL, but it is accurate that SYD is not possible.
My bad Vulcan. 777s certainly have the range, it's the ETOPS certification that's the issue, and I wasn't up on the current limits and diversion points. Clearly UA is doing the route on triple 7s. I looked up the incident you cite, and that United flight went 192 minutes on a single engine (headwinds) to get to HNL.
I'm going to Oz next summer, would be nice if CO were back on that route by then!