I don’t know what the capabilities are for non-ETOPS airlineres here. Our only operational limitation is that we can’t be any further than 50 NM from land, not necessarily an airport, since we don’t have floatation equipment on board.

Very interesting, thanks. What route were you applying for ETOPS approval for?

The ETOPS would help with our IAH to Florida, Carribean and Central American routes as we are required to stay within 50 NM of the coast rather than fly straight across the Gulf of Mexico. Out of EWR it would help with the Carribean as well as Halifax, NS and St. John’s, Newfoundland. I’m sure they have a lot more on the books that they want to launch pending a short ETOPS but we’ll only find out about them when they appear on our schedules.

As we have seen, Continental are starting alot of new transatlantic services to new regional detinations with 757s; maybe the etops 737-800 will make an appearance too when certified??

I doubt they would bother with Transatlantic. CO has had some explosive growth in Central America as well as the previous service to the Carribean islands that all benefit from ETOPS due to the fuel savings of direct routing out of IAH and EWR. Also can’t forget about the Guam base which is by far the biggest benefactor of the ETOPS certification. Every destination there is an island out in the Pacific Ocean.