Boeings 3rd quarter ETOPS report available

Here - I haven't actually read this one - I get a notification when it is released and occasionally use it to source information, but I thought it might be of interest to some people here.

for the non-aviation types out there - ETOPS stands for Extended Twin engine OPerationS, or ExTended OPerationS - now also known as EDTO - Extended Diversion Time Operations.

It is a set of operating rules that governs how far twin engined aircraft are allowed to be from airports & the Wiki article is a pretty good sumamry I think.

A couple of maps in the document are good illustrators of how dense the air network is - the 1st is the ETOPS routes that Boeing twin engine a/c fly worldwide - these are obviously not "weighted" for the number of flights, but give some idea of just how many different air routes there are:

The second is the same just for the Pacific so it is not quite as cluttered - still very busy....but a little easier to see individual routes I think:

And lastly the North Pacific ETOPS routes, colour coded by the type of Boeing a/c used to fly them -