FAA ruling to boost Boeing twin-engine jets

Resolving years of arguments between Boeing Co. and European rival Airbus, U.S. regulators are nearing completion of rules that effectively conclude that jetliners with two engines are as safe as those with three or four engines and should have the same flexibility in flying long-distance routes, industry officials said.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s anticipated rules are expected to particularly benefit Boeing’s twin-engine 777 and the company’s strategy of building such planes capable of flying passengers directly to their destinations without transferring through busy hub airports, these officials said. Currently, those planes must stay within 3 1/2 hours of an emergency-landing strip while traversing wide expanses of ocean or flying over polar terrain devoid of safe places to land.

The rules are expected to establish uniform requirements for every type of long-haul jetliner when they are issued this fall. The regulations are expected to allow twin-engine jetliners to fly routes where the nearest airport is as much as 5 1/2 hours away. That would open up the vast majority of commercial routes world-wide for the 777 as well as Boeing’s next-generation 787 Dreamliner, expected to go into service in mid-2008.

Operators of long-range planes with three and four engines, particularly older models, will likely also face additional requirements to bring them to the same standard as newer twin-engine planes, including stepped-up training for dispatchers and maintenance employees.

The move would end federal inertia on a safety topic that has sparked one of the longest and most contentious marketing and public-relations disputes in commercial aviation. For well over a decade, Airbus — 80 percent-owned by European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. and 20 percent-owned by BAE Systems PLC — and Boeing have argued about the relative safety of two engines versus four engines on the proliferating number of extended, nonstop international flights, some already stretching roughly 16 hours.