Originally Posted by Lerxst

Pratt engine mods (plugs) to increase thrust and a paperwork shuffle to increase the UA757 MGTOW from 225ish k to the CAL 255.5 k could be easily accomplished. In fact, UCH shoulda demanded it as part of "ol' Sparky's" delays. The 737 NG has a single cross feed and its 180 ETOPS, so I'm not sure that's a problem. Even w/o an HMG a 757 should be able to go 180 ETOPS by running the APU or doing a APU cold start reliability test program (like Alaska did) so as to not hafta run it.

I'd much rather have a revamped and retooled 57 that has loads of performance to get out of anywhere and cruise above the weather than the 900er that can't do either.