I would like to introduce a very comprehensive website on LROPS, which would be in effect since early 2003 reagrding flights over extreme areas, like the Poles.

http://europe-aviation-rulemaking.org/lrops/index.html

This website provides many advanced technical documents on ETOPS and LROPS, as well as a section 'Economics' stating the costs for diversion and the better economics of using LROPS-compliant quadjet on flights flying over extreme regions. It said the ETOPS diversion typically costs US$1 million per event, and thost for Arctic would be much higher.

It also said it is not possible to ferry a twinjet to the base to repair, so transport of engines to the diversion airport is needed. But a quadjet itself can be ferried to the base for repair.

Lastly the 'Polar survival kits' section under 'LROPS design' main topic said it is impossible to provide each passenger a polar survival kit because of its large size (the bag is 80cm long) and weight. It also said airlines must ensure all passengers to have full polar clothing for landing in the polar airports. This is again impractical, especially when the passengers are travelling between 2 warm destinations (as they would never carry polar clothings just for ETOPS flights!!) So LROPS ensures airlines do not need to divert to cold polar airports, and have more time to divert to better and warmer airports.

All these proves Boeing's claim of B777 provides best economy for long routes is not correct, and quadjets like A340 is the much better solution.

Lucasiu,

It is really boring to see your Boeing-B777 bashing everytime I come here.
Can't you think of a new subject or you just have nothing better to do than being a little whinger?
Maybe you just can't stand the fact that B777 has more sales order than A340.

By the way, Sonic Cruiser is going to kick the living daylight out of A380.
2 engines, 10,000miles, cut the travel time by 20%-30%, sounds much better than 600 people trip in a double deck unit.

Just see what happens after implementation of LROPS in early 2003......I expect many airlines would switch from B777 to A340 because A340 of quad engine design has longer permissible diversion time (up to 8 hours for LROPS compliant ones compared to 3 hours for B777), hence enables more direct routing, like routes over the poles, while still maintaining maximum safety for the passengers (no need to land at polar airports with poor facilities.)

And the Sonic Cruiser you mentioned is twin-engined, so it is still subjected to ETOPS constraint like B777, hence only longer routes not going via extreme areas can be used. It would still be slower than A340 on flying routes like trans-South Pacific, trans-South Indian, trans-South Atlantic, transpolar routes.