Remember taking a chap from Boeing to the USA about 4 years ago, he had been trying to sell the B777 to Virgin. He said they were not interested as they could buy several classics for the same price. It was cost and not the number of engines that were the issue. He pointed out that the B777 direct operating costs were $5,000 per hour less then a classic and that VS had an average use time of 15 hours per day, saving of $75,000 per day, $2.25 million per month. Subtract lease cost of $0.8 million = $1.45 million X 10 aircraft = $14.5 per month = $174 million per year. This cost assumes the clasics he bought cost him zero and he spent zero money on them. Every other airline was busy chopping their 747s in for 777s, now you know why. I wonder if flying with 4 pods has been worth the 0.5 billion extra cost over the past 3 years. Add to this increased passenger comfort, better reliability, less down time, CAT3b etc, etc, etc