3-Hour Supersonic Transatlantic Flights Coming

27.07.2023 - 18:20 / smartertravel.com / Richard Branson

Soon, you’ll be able to fly from New York to London in about three hours—again. An ambitious group of enthusiasts, engineers, and financiers announced a plan to build a new supersonic transport (SST) aptly named “Boom.” The trade press reports that a half-scale demonstrator and test vehicle, called the XB-1, will fly sometime next year. Presumably, a production version will fly within a few more years, and a lot sooner than the typical timetable for big-plane development at Airbus and Boeing would dictate.

The full-scale SST is designed to hold 45 to 55 passengers and fly at Mach 2.2—a tad faster than the Concorde. Even more ambitious is the proposed range of 4,500 nautical miles, or more than 5,000 statute miles, which is a lot farther than the Concorde could fly. That range would enable nonstop supersonic flights from Seattle to Tokyo and Seoul and maybe even squeeze out San Francisco-Tokyo. Almost all of Western Europe would also be open from Boston or New York.

Developers are not trying to eliminate the sonic boom, as are the developers of a few other supersonic proposals. Instead, the Boom will be designed to operate economically when it has to slow down to just under Mach 1 when crossing inhabited land areas. So the plane will fly on routes that are mostly overwater. But those routes represent markets that could use a lot of planes.

Although the Boom liner may sound like vaporware, the folks behind it have some cred: Virgin Galactic and its Scaled Composites partners have developed some pretty amazing hardware. Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson has officially optioned 10 planes.

The PR for the project promises “affordable supersonic travel,” but “affordable” is an elastic concept. Concorde fares were pegged at or above prevailing first-class fares, amounting to a round-trip New York-London fare around $12,000 in the late 1970s. That was affordable enough to a small number of travelers that British Airways filled a lot of flights. But it wasn’t even on the radar screen for most travelers.

Developers expect the Boom to have much better economics than the Concorde. It will not need fuel-gulping afterburners to get off the ground and reach cruising altitude, and its airframe incorporates a lot of new post-Concorde aerodynamic technology. Still, today’s first-class fares are about the same as they were for the Concorde, and full-fare business class nonstop round-trip to London is more than $6,000. Presumably, “affordable” Boom fares will be affordable in the context