Transpacific operations with the Boeing 777 were inaugurated on 21 July when one of China Southern Airlines' two General Electric-powered 777-200IGWs (increased gross weight) landed at Los Angeles after a 12h 37min flight from Guangzhou.
The service began following 180min extended-range twin-engine operations (ETOPS) approval for the 777 to operate the route from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in May and the US Federal Aviation Administration in June.
"There were no problems," says Paul Fang, Boeing director of international sales in China, who was a passenger on what the company believes is the first and only regularly scheduled commercial ETOPS service across the Pacific. Some transpacific flights are operated by Boeing 767s, but on an irregular basis.
The flight, which was routed via Shanghai and Japan, could have been shorter if Russian air-traffic control had approved an overflight of Kamkatcha - a more direct routeing which China Southern hopes to use in future.
"We're quite optimistic that this is the beginning of a lot more of this sort of ETOPS operation with the 777 across the Pacific," says Fang. China Southern now operates a fleet of six 777s, four of which are baseline -200s and two are -200IGWs. Dispatch reliability of the General Electric GE90-powered fleet is running at 99.48%.
Source: Flight International
