I had to look up ROFL. How sad is that?ETOPs, to me, falls into that special
category of aviation topics that includes spinning, night flying, altimetry and
what you're supposed to do at approach minima. By which I mean almost everyone
goes around saying that these things are "not a big deal", but then waste
hundreds of man hours by turning them into the very "big deal" they claim
they're not supposed to be. When I die and go to hell Satan will put me in a
roomful of those numpties and, i imagine like that scene in Clockwork Orange,
force me to watch and listen to those interminal death-by-PowerPoint
presentations on ETOPS including the exact layout and luminescence of the
runway lighting at the nearest ten airfields, eight of which you'd never
divert to at night anyway. Simon
-------- Original message --------From: "Karl L. Swartz via Mifnet"
<[email protected]> Date: 26/09/2025 09:09 (GMT+00:00) To: Mifnet
<[email protected]> Cc: "Karl L. Swartz" <[email protected]> Subject: [Mifnet
đź›° 74333] Re: AA empty flights ROFL! Tom, you know I can spot the WTFs even if
I can’t solve the puzzle.In this case I’m left with few explanations other than
that AA is daft. Perhaps Eric can enlighten us, if there’s a sane explanation.Â
-- KarlOn Sep 25, 2025, at 11:29 PM, Tom Ronell via Mifnet
<[email protected]> wrote:
You seem to know why everybody is wrong - why don't you have an answer?
From: Karl L. Swartz via Mifnet <[email protected]>To: Mifnet
<[email protected]>CC: Karl L. Swartz <[email protected]>Date:
2025-09-26T06:18:19ZSubject: [Mifnet đź›° 74331] Re: AA empty flights
Why? 120-minute ETOPS is sufficient for the North Atlantic, though
138-minute ETOPS closes a hole. There’s no need for 240-minute ETOPS over theÂ
Atlantic, and in conversations with Airbus I’ve been told they see no need for
no more than 180 for the A321XLR.
 -- Karl
On Sep 25, 2025, at 11:06 PM, Tom Ronell via Mifnet
<[email protected]> wrote:
Could this be an attempt to get from 180 to 240 ETOPs?
From: Karl L. Swartz via Mifnet <[email protected]>To: Mifnet
<[email protected]>CC: Karl L. Swartz <[email protected]>Date:
2025-09-26T05:58:10ZSubject: [Mifnet đź›° 74329] Re: AA empty flights
AA didn’t use an A321XLR for the "qualification” flights so that’s
not it.
As I noted, AA already has ETOPS-180 for the A321 for Hawaii,
though only a subset of their fleet is ETOPS qualified. (In contrast, so far as
I know, all of United’s current 737 fleet is ETOPS qualified.)
True, northern and western European destinations do not require
ETOPS from the northeastern US, but it’s painful to do non-ETOPS.
 -- Karl
On Sep 25, 2025, at 10:39 PM, Tom Ronell via Mifnet
<[email protected]> wrote:
Pethaps, since they were flying only to northern and western
European destinations, they did not require ETOPS, as American does in order to
go further south across the Atlantic. Or maybe they already had ETOPS
qualification with those types from Hawaii and Caribbean/LatAm operations,
respectively.
A321XLR may be considered a new airframe/engine combination
from A321, for ETOPS purposes.
From: Karl L. Swartz via Mifnet
<[email protected]>To: Mifnet <[email protected]>CC: Karl L. Swartz
<[email protected]>Date: 2025-09-26T05:07:07ZSubject: [Mifnet đź›° 74327] Re: AA empty
flights
I’d dismiss this story as nonsense had it not been
published by reliable sources, rather than Simpleton Flying.
It still doesn’t make sense. United didn’t do anything
like this when they started flying the 737 MAX most of the way across the
Atlantic. Neither did JetBlue with their A321 flying to Europe.
ETOPS-proving might make sense, except AA already has
180-minute ETOPS on the A321 (for Hawaii)—and it didn’t stop them from flying a
non-ETOPS A321 to Hawaii a decade ago:
…
This whole thing baffles me.
 -- Karl
…
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