Will Boom Bring Back Supersonic Passenger Flights?

Eh, I can still see a lot of value in supersonic travel. A most fundamental statement (which is still true today) is that time is money. And sitting in a business class seat with internet access for 12 hours is still less efficient than being at your destination in 6 hours....for certain people at least. While I am sure there's a market for this, my concern would be with the NIMBY's and "how dare you" crowd. You know, the folks who've blocked an awful lot of progress for the past 50 years now.

Any chance higher aircraft utilization would help improve the economics of supersonic travel? If they can do 3 RTs between NYC-LHR instead of 1-2 RTs, would be more ASMs for the aircraft (but at the same time, I'm sure fuel is a bigger cost).

Major Kong on Daily Kos did an article about these a while back. He flies for UPS and said that while you're obviously going to have a super-billionaire or two buy one of these just to have a capability/'shiny thing' that lesser billionaires don't, or a group of rich people chartering them, that he thought the best utility for them would be for extremely valuable and/or time-sensitive cargo/courier jobs, but that even those would be so infrequent as to make the plane a waste of money.

As someone who has flown Concorde (1999 from NYC to London) it certainly was "nice" and interesting to arrive in Europe in such a short time and to be able to boast of having flown past the speed of sound. In a twist, my return to the states was on the QE2 which was the opposite at six days (but an entirely different experience!). With that being said, it is hard to justify a supersonic business model, especially today. 1) Given the necessary costs involved to make the business model profitable (assuming no government subsidy) the cost of transit would be too high for all but C-level execs and the handful of wealthy private citizens that used to fly the Concorde. 2) Much has changed since the Concorde quit flying even more so with the effects of Covid. We have rationalized the need to physically be places and world trade can handled virtually. Only in certain circumstances would anyone need to be anywhere in person. Given the timeline of the vaccine and the necessary disruptions that it has caused, we will likely go two business years with restricted limited travel. Businesses will rationalize this behavior and whence we are all (mostly) vaccinated I do not expect that people will travel for business at nearly the same level.

The major issue with Concorde and I assume this won’t change here, is maintenance cost - there are way more things that could go wrong at Mach 2.2 then at 600 mph. Additionally almost full capacity needs to be achieved to cover costs while wide body aircraft can cover with Y pax and some business, also the costs of a sub fleet not replaced with other aircraft in the fleet is very costly and passenger showing to see airplane switch to regular air aircraft will be pissed and probably not book again...
All these make me agree with lucky saying this probably doesn’t make sense economically

It really depends on the route.

London - Dubai 3 hours, that means if you leave London at 7am, you reach Dubai 2pm. That still gives you a solid afternoon in an office.
Westbound, a 9pm departure would land you in London at 8pm, giving you a solid sleep at home.

Reverse this:
Dubai London at 9am, you land in London 8am, giving you a full day at work.
London Dubai at 7pm, you land in Dubai at 2am, not amazing, but not awful either.

Delhi Singapore at 2.15 hours flight time
Leave Delhi 7am, reach Singapore 11.45am.
Leave Singapore 8pm reach Delhi 7.45pm
Pretty great really...

So in essence this would be best for flights currently 4 to 8 hours. How many time zones you hop would also be a factor, but in Asia this usually isn't as many as you would leaving the US.

Singapore - Tokyo is a 1 hour time difference but an 8 hour flight.

Back in the day it was reasonably popular to take the Concorde west bound from London and BA first on a 747 on the return for precisely the reasons you state, a full day of work in NewYork with a sleep before work in London on the return.

I’m sure there will be a niche for this, maybe not a big one though.

Has anyone ever proposed having supersonic flight only fly West? In other words, solve the time-change problem by running service LON-NYC-SF/LA-TYO-LON in a loop. Business travelers travel west by supersonic flight and east by lie-flat overnighter. There are obviously tons of other logistical issues, but the time change issue would seem nicely resolved in this case.

@Peter

And miss Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Sydney, Bangkok, Delhi, Mumbai, Dubai, Moscow, Frankfurt, and Paris out entirely?

Are we still in 1960?

I would absolutely fly this aircraft. For me, time is of the absolute essence and an extra 5 hours on the ground is simply priceless. $5000 per ticket is a fair price for the convenience but I don’t want to spend 2-3 hours before the flight at the airport.
I expect to arrive 30 minutes before take off at a dedicated premium terminal, where I wisk through security and on to the plane. I need seamless end-to-end convenience not standing in line for 25 minutes to be sexually assaulted by airport “security”.

I can’t wait for it!

@Peter Unless the FAA changes its regulations, NYC-SFO/LAX would have to be subsonic.

Like K4 says, I'm not sure North America to Europe makes sense, UAE to Asia makes a lot of sense...

@K4 I had much the same thought on routing. This works much better for North- South routes than East-West. Tokyo to Sydney would be another example. A series of westbound routes would be intriguing as well, though it would require some Fifth Freedom gymnastics. I think there's a place for the aircraft, but in limited numbers and more creative routing than what we see today.

Whole lot of people here forget why the Concorde only flew to LHR or CDG to JFK or IAD. The sonic boom was causing damage to objects on the ground. So K4, all of your routes are not feasible unless you're replacing windows along the entire route. Otherwise, you are going to have the Chelyabinsk meteor on a daily basis.

I agree that this won't be an easy game. What carriers often want these days is flexibility, so I see much more demand for planes like the 787 and the middle-of-the-market A220 family.

However, that doesn't mean that there is no market for supersonic travel at all. A product like this could enable same-day return business trips for transcontinental travel in the US, on routes like Japan - Singapore, or within China.

Furthermore, there could be potential cost savings from flight duty restrictions, as the same crew could possibly fly more legs. It could also bring a chance to use slots that would otherwise be out of reach due to night-ban.

As someone has already mentioned, express and courier freight could be an interesting thing as well. That's not necessarily containerized, so could go in the cabin or bulk compartments.

So there's definitely potential. Also, if JL invested in this, they must have a business case for it. While it will definitely remain a niche until we make breakthroughs in propulsion technology, I do see that this could sell surprisingly well.

I take issue with "The plane will be 100% carbon neutral". The plane will certainly NOT be carbon neutral. The company may choose to do offsetting thing to, in aggregate, make the project carbon neutral, but nothing that burns petrocarbons will ever be carbon neutral. This is a pet peeve of mine as it's silly green-washing/virtue signaling.

Should half of the seats be reserved for low income people and 1/4 for middle income people? Why not? 30% of seats for under represented minorities.

But there are no engines for that type of plane nowadays...

@Frank Technology has come a long way since the Concorde days. There has reportedly been research in mitigating the sonic boom that would have kept the Concorde below regulatory thresholds. If Boom is serious about this, I have to believe they'll be utilizing that technology to maximize route flexibility. If not, the whole project is likely DOA.

@MattR - Maybe they would have chosen another company name, if flying without the boom is their goal too?

I would think there is a market for it, just as some people prefer to fly between Berlin and Munich, and some people prefer the train.

Flying north-south (e.g., NY to Brazil), the time zone doesn't change much and cutting a 10 hour flight to 5 hours makes sense. But of course the financial centers are not in the southern hemisphere, so it's hard to see how there'd be a market.

How do they plan to make the plane carbon neutral? They can't control what kind of fuel their customers use. Maybe manufacturing can be made carbon-neutral, but actually flying the plane is going to emit way more CO2.

@DLPTATL

I heard you. A company that I buy parts from does the same. There's no just thing as carbon neutral be because once the bad stuff are in the air, it stay there.

This company is, in fact, extremely underfunded to realize its vision. You will need to see them raise billions if this passes the R&D stage and is ever to be produced.

I hope it does. I’ve followed them since YC.

@Abey
Concorde’s high maintenance costs were mainly because there were so few planes flying and only 2 airlines flying them. Had the type been a greater commercial success the maintenance program would have been comparatively less expensive. Worth remembering that during the late 80s/early 90s Concorde accounted to 25% of all of BA’s profit; not bad for 7 small planes that were expensive to maintain...

Saving an hour or two on a trans-atlantic flight isn't going to cut it. There's a problem with longer trans-pacific flights: supersonic jets burn too much fuel which they have to carry, making them fuel and cost inefficient.

Unless they work out how to supress the noise from the sonic booms, this would struggle to be commercially viable as was the issue with Concorde since it was not allowed to fly supersonic over most land.

Also, Concorde supersonic travel was profitable for the most part in an operational sense. As if BA and AF would have run them for 30 years if it wasn't at all profitable.

The development and production of the Concorde on the other hand was an enourmous loss with European taxpayers who funded the project losing the equivelant of billions of dollars.

The chances of this Boom aircraft actually being produce are very low. Who's going to fund the Billions of dollars required to make it happen? And why would anyone fund the development when the market is rather small?

Aerion, based in Melbourne, FL and backed by GE and Boeing is doing the same for business aircraft. https://aerionsupersonic.com/

As for this new venture, it has all the limiting factors of its predecessor to include limited range and airports that will allow them. I’m sure the cost of a ticket would be a lot higher than a current full fare J ticket on one of the majors. I personally wouldn’t find the trade-off of time savings versus additional cost to be worth it.

@Tony

It’s supposed to half journey times not save an hour or two.

I have been flying ultra longhaul regularly for the past 5 years at the rate of one roundtrip per month (20-23k miles per trip at nearly 24 hours each way with a stop or two). As nice as lie flat seats and wifi are, I would pay $$$ to fly direct between my origin & destination at Mach 2.2 (both are major cities) and shave off 2/3 of the time.

- If this is going to have the same supersonic boom when going through the sound barrier, and considering the struggles Concorde had with that and not being allowed to go through it over land, there company name might not work out as hoped 😉

- Is it just me or does 5000USD roundtrip seem relatively cheap for the time saving compared to most current prices? Of course, actual prices might be a lot more than what they claim, so they can attract airlines.

- Would love to see this happen, but it still faces some of the same problems Concorde faced, high maintenance, an irregularity in the fleet, controversial sound issues (not sure if it will be as loud as Concorde if it is carbon neutral, how will they do this practically?)

- I do think some airlines will use this, some business routes will definitely be able to use this, considering time savings in at least one direction, the prestige connected to it etc. I mean, a lot of people still think about Concorde when thinking about BA and the other way around

Might be interesting: a ticket on Concorde in 1986 *one way* was just short of 5000USD (4934 USD) according to this AP article from back in the time:

https://apnews.com/article/fa1e281d544267a8afe77afceaf3f03f

@ stogieguy7!
This aircraft is limited in range. A longer flight would save little time, it would have to land and refuel. Most widebodies today can fly 12 hours or more nonstop.

Hard to imagine how the fare could be less than on curret aircraft given the lacking economies of scale.

I got to fly Concorde. The problem, for an avgeek, was that it was too fast. As you were just starting to love the experience, they insisted on landing. Concorde was awesome.

I enjoyed my Concorde experience, and would love to fly on this aircraft, but I would find it uncomfortable to sit in that seat for anything over, say, 5-1/2 hours.

Yeah, let's name a budding supersonic airline after the sound an explosion makes. Marketing geniuses right there.

@Dom

Which the FAA undoubtedly will, because it's built in the US, unlike the restrictions put on Concorde, because it wasn't. Notable the 300 seater "2707" with titanium swing wings that barely left the drawing board, except for a wooden mock up, which succeeded in usurping all the orders (114, I believe) for Concorde.

Partisan or what?

@Ben

Why compare the supersonic stats to a subsonic plane? Surely a better comparison would be to compare with Concorde; like with like.

Further I would say that most readers here are fully familiar with the stats of subsonic versions, but probably not the detail of supersonic flight.

It would have been much more interesting to compare length, speed, altitude with a like machine.

The most interesting stat for me is its length, which seems too long to sustain a sonic boom, as the vibration increases down the plane.

@Mileslawson
Indeed, plus free advertising every time one went over "Oh look its BA Concorde!"

I would use it in specific circumstance... Not on every trip but maybe 2-3 times a year.

No one mentions the current airport situation. If at least 50%-100% premium on an business class ticket is going to work they'll HAVE speed up and eliminate the airport and security hassle. Bag drop and go, 20-30mins curb to taxi, priority take off slot... Otherwise the saving a couple of hours in the air is irrelevant.

What Ben and many of the Users here are forgetting is the fact that sonic booms still exist and thus almost all countries ban overland flights. This makes any supersonic passenger plane an extreme niche product. It can fly over the atlantic like the Concorde but for actual transpacific routes other than Hawaii it does not have the range.

As @Frank correctly points out, the problem with Concorde wasn't profitability—especially once BA/AF realized they were pricing way too low—but practicality. Supersonic flight over land is problematic and to suppress the sonic boom would be to alter the laws of physics.

That's why only transoceanic routes from/to coastal cities make sense, and even that only for a portion of the journey. The very limited number of Concordes did find their few viable routes, though ultimately the impracticality of maintaining a handful of aircraft sealed their fate. Had it not been for that, the fuel costs would have buried it just a few years down the road in late 2000s.

This has served to remind me that American English always refers to it as "The Concorde" yet every regular speaker correctly calls it "Concorde".

@ Mileslawson that was because British &French gov basically financed the airplane otherwise it would’ve been a financial failure.

@UpperDeckJohnny it's almost exactly the same length as Concorde.

I think that there would be lots and lots of demand in the new you tube generation as well as executives and celebrities. And don’t forget that Concorde made a lot of money from charters too

I imagine that without some serious fuel efficiency, this won't be very profitable with only 65ish seats on the NYC-LON corridor. That being said, I wouldn't mind flying this westbound, as many posters have commented on. And, I wouldn't have a problem flying this during the day on an eastbound route, like North America to Europe. The way flights are timed out of the States, for example, to London/Paris/Amsterdam/really anywhere in Europe, doesn't make for a restful night's sleep for me - by the time the crew is done with their service and I fall asleep (IF I fall asleep on these flights...), I can get about 3 hours of sleep, max, before they start their wake-up/breakfast services. The next day is then a waste for me, either for business or pleasure This is especially brutal on the redeyes from the East Coast or Chicago to Western Europe, no matter how comfortable the seat.

It’s a nice fantasy, but it will not happen. No chance. For the next 30 years, air travel means boring but efficient and reasonably comfortable tubes like the 787, a350, and 777-9.

It looks like a Concorde with a nicer interior. How do the specs of this proposed plane compare to that of a Concorde?

@Alpha Golf
Thanks. That could be the key to the sonic boom problem. If it's the same length, but only 1 x 1 seating, it must be pencil thin, which I understand is key.

I can't wait to fly on it!

Yes miss those places out. I'm not still in 1960 so much as the 1950s, or better still the 1930s.

@Ben Dover

LA and SF wouldn’t have been much good in the 1930s either.

In fact perhaps a Birmingham U.K. to Chicago route would be good in the 30s and basically useless today.

There are several problems with this:

The first is the sonic boom, which is relatively obvious. You have to either eliminate it, or reduce its impact. Several ways currently in the research stage how to do that, but they are just that - in the research stage.

The second is cockpit visibility - they are using a compound delta wing for low supersonic drag. That means, like Concorde, on landing, visibility from the cockpit will need to be addressed due to nose up attitude.

The third will be noise on takeoff/landing. Low speed drag will be high, meaning you will need high thrust on takeoff, which means noise.

Fourth - engines and efficiency. They arent there yet. They allegedly have a contract with Rolls Royce for engine development.

@RTBones

Noise on take off due to delta wings may, I have been told, be reduced by using vectored thrust nacelles, eliminating the need for after burners, which are noisy and thirsty.

I'm sure the UK would be happy to sell them the droop snoop technology to allow visibility on landing!

K4, who cares about California? The world doesn't revolve around the United States.
Birmingham was never a key airport. The old route in the 1930 was more likely London or Southampton down through Europe, over Mesopotamia and Persia, into British India, thence the Far East before getting down to the antipodes.
For that, a supersonic bird would have offered little benefit due to the noise. A transoceanic route makes more sense, so perhaps London to the east coast of the United States, Caribbean islands or South America.

Old post I realize, but I think the flat-bed feature is spot on.

Back in the Soviet days, many party members preferred taking the overnight trains between cities even though they were some of the few who could actually fly. The ability to have a comfortable seat/bed and travel overnight won out over speed.

I imagine the market for supersonic flights lines up more with the private jet crowd than it does with the current commercial premium cabin crowd. THOSE are the people for whom money is basically irrelevant and time is everything, going so far as to drop at least somewhere in the mid-5-figures to save the time that goes into commercial travel (check-in, security, and connections). I could see those people who are willing to drop eye-watering amounts of money to save a few hours being willing to spend what the likely full-fare business or higher fares if it can shave down actual flight time on cross-ocean flights.

If you want to know if this thing is ever going to have a chance to fly, you have to ask about the engines. The scaled down demonstrator is relying on fighter jet engines that have been around for years. But for the final product there is no off the shelf engine option.

Last year Boom announced they are partnering with Rolls Royce to, "investigate whether an existing engine architecture can be adapted for supersonic flight." That's a long way from having a viable engine.

If and when Rolls Royce or a competitor announces they are definitively committing the billions of dollars needed to develop and ship an engine then there is some chance this plane will fly. Until then it will never happen.

On a related note, the Overture is a three-engine design, which drives up costs and maintenance burden for operators. It may save having to go through ETOPS certification, but it's not clear that is a net win. There's a reason nobody is buying A340s and more and why there is no such thing as a DC-10-NG or L1011-NG.

It is an interesting concept.

First of all forget those giant windows. In the case of a window failure, the ECS has to be able to maintain cabin pressurisation as the aircraft descends from 60,000' to 10,000'. That's why Concorde had such small windows.

Second, this aircraft is almost exactly the same size as Concorde but carries only 65 pax?

Third it cannot escape the boom problem as it currently is designed.

Fourth, the engines have to be suitable for supercruising (flying supersonically without reheat - afterburner) as Concorde/Olympus 593 did very efficiently.

As someone who has had the remarkable experience of flying on Concorde, I hope it is successful but there are many hurdles to overcome.