On January 16, 2007, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued revised
regulatory material relating to the operation of all aircraft on flights with the potential
for extended time diversions. As a result, the term ETOPS has been redefined as
"Extended Operations" and now includes the operation of all transport aircraft,
regardless of the number of engines (except All- Cargo operations of airplanes with
more than 2-engines), further than specific threshold times from available enroute
diversion airports.The new FAA rules, while still limiting two-engine airplanes to
routes that remain within 60 minutes from an Adequate Airport, unless the operator
is approved for ETOPS, will now allow two-engine airplanes to be flown on ETOPS
routes with diversion times greater than 240 minutes flying time in certain geographic regions.
