Originally Posted by
John Carr
Right. And to make it more fun, the flight doesn't have to be filed ETOPS the ENTIRE segment.
A buddy of mine showed me a flight he did where it was only required for ~3 miles/20 seconds of a 14 hour flight.
It would be pretty rare to be ETOPS for an entire flight. But, a flight is either ETOPS or it's not, no matter how long you actually spend in ETOPS airspace. Indy to Paris we had one segment and were only ETOPS for 1:38. Pretty normal for NAT crossing. KIX-MEM we had two segments, the first was about 1:40 and then out near the Aleutians, back in for ~2 hours. Further south it can be 3 segments.
I've been on the one you're talking about with just a few minutes, which is typical in western China/Kazakhstan. In for a minute, in for an hour, you still have to jump through the same hoops prior to entry and your flight plan say "ETOPS".