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American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

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Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#61

Post by nradov »

moffkalast wrote: post #34
gbronner wrote: post #6

Curious how the combination of remote work, videoconferencing, and the really luxurious business class / first class on sub-mach aircraft will compare to this. This is slower and smaller than concorde, so we'll see if the market really values speed over convenience / luxury. Boeing made the opposite decision 20 years ago when they cancelled the sonic cruiser.

I'm pretty sure a Europe-Australia line that doesn't take two days with 3 layovers would sell like hotcakes regardless of accommodations.

The Boom Overture lacks the range for the Europe-Australia line. It would have to make two refueling stops to fly CDG to SYD. I think the primary initial market will be Transatlantic.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#62

Post by petesergeant »

JCM9 wrote: post #11

Strong FOMO settling in. Premium transatlantic routes routes like NYC-LHR are super important to the bottom line of the big legacy carriers. If one airline has supersonic and others don’t that could be a huge blow to the others. Of course things didn’t work out that way with Concorde, which was not commercially successful and more of a spectacle than something founded in business fundamentals. But if Boom can make su…

> If one airline has supersonic and others don’t that could be a huge blow to the others

I think it's going to come down to exactly how fast or slow this is, the price, and what the hard-product (eg the seats) are like. A modern First Class is a very, very comfortable way to travel, and other than the novelty value, I'd certainly rather spend 8 hours in lie-flat that 5 hours in a recliner. That'll also depend on the time-of-day of the flight -- worth saving the time perhaps if you're traveling East-to-West, but for West-to-East might as well just overnight it?

Long story short, I think it'll have use-cases, but it's not like Concorde -- when Concorde launched, 1st Class over the Atlantic looked a lot like 1st Class inside the states now -- comfortable, but not somewhere you wanted to spend a lot of time

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#63

Post by whatusername »

moffkalast wrote: post #34
gbronner wrote: post #6

Curious how the combination of remote work, videoconferencing, and the really luxurious business class / first class on sub-mach aircraft will compare to this. This is slower and smaller than concorde, so we'll see if the market really values speed over convenience / luxury. Boeing made the opposite decision 20 years ago when they cancelled the sonic cruiser.

I'm pretty sure a Europe-Australia line that doesn't take two days with 3 layovers would sell like hotcakes regardless of accommodations.

If you haven't seen it -- Qantas are pushing ahead with "Project Sunrise" on A350-1000. So you'd get to MEL or SYD without a layover - but with something like a 20 hour flight.

https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/qantas-anno...

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#64

Post by skellera »

If Boom is able to come out with a new supersonic aircraft, is it possible for a startup to compete with Boeing or Airbus in subsonic aircraft? Either coming up with a new design or another innovation that can compete. Or, are those companies pretty much set with impassable moats?

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#65

Post by cjrp »

akmarinov wrote: post #19
HPsquared wrote: post #13

How is the fuel efficiency of these? They go faster, but I assume they would also fly higher where the air is thinner. Does it cancel out?

Adding to the supersonic questions - how will they deal with the sonic booms? I assume they're still banned over land, which significantly adds to travel time?

I wonder how noisy they are even sub-sonic. Concorde was so loud on takeoff and approach, you'd stop and look up even living ~20 miles away from Heathrow. If you tried to introduce that now, there's no way would it be accepted.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#67

Post by missedthecue »

zionic wrote: post #37
ISL wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich people value time highly. Coach-class that gets you somewhere quickly can be worth a lot more than first-class that takes twice as long.

Also sanity. I’ve done a 16 hour flight before, and let me say never again . I slept for half of it and the other half was still miserable.

I don't think I could sleep for 8 hours on a plane

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#68

Post by hnburnsy »

N1H1L wrote: post #51
JCM9 wrote: post #11

Strong FOMO settling in. Premium transatlantic routes routes like NYC-LHR are super important to the bottom line of the big legacy carriers. If one airline has supersonic and others don’t that could be a huge blow to the others. Of course things didn’t work out that way with Concorde, which was not commercially successful and more of a spectacle than something founded in business fundamentals. But if Boom can make su…

United also has a deal with Boom, that was June this year. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57361193

>Overture’s order book, including purchases and options from American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines stands at 130 aircraft. Boom is working with Northrop Grumman for government and defense applications of Overture.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#69

Post by Rebelgecko »

flerchin wrote: post #9

Not a lot to go on here. Boom projects first flight in 2026 for the Overture. They seem to be fairly close to first flight with their XB-1, but it has not flown yet. I congratulate them on getting funding, but all the hard parts are ahead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_XB-1

Awkward... The website FAQs still say "XB-1 test flights are planned for early 2022."
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