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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

#151
post #95
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, and makes sense where your face-to-face time is the key thing. But where it's just "work time", surely you can do a good amount of work on a 7 hour flight in a decent business class seat with reliable internet? Especially if you can also minimise the time wasted on the ground (fast security line, lounge with areas to work, airline calling your flight when it's almost finished boarding not at the start, etc…

There are definitely people who can get work done in a flight, but honestly I have a hard time imagining logging 7 hours. Maybe if you have a lot of reading to do?

I do too, but I also don't have a huge amount of experience sitting in an incredibly comfortable first class seat. I imagine I'd get a lot more done than I do in coach.

I think if I had a decent internet connection (happening more and more) and comfortable seat I'd happily take a 7/8 hour flight over a 5 hour one in a coach-style seat.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#152
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 dont think supersonic will be a success. Remote has made business travel a lot less necessary and more predictable, so people are more likely to plan multi-hop business tours rather than flash transatlantic and transpacific flights. The failure of A380 is also telling: people are fine with flexible hops. But most of all people want to reduce their carbon footprint by minimizing travel distances, not travel times.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#153
post #47
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.

It's true, and makes sense where your face-to-face time is the key thing. But where it's just "work time", surely you can do a good amount of work on a 7 hour flight in a decent business class seat with reliable internet? Especially if you can also minimise the time wasted on the ground (fast security line, lounge with areas to work, airline calling your flight when it's almost finished boarding not at the start, etc…

Airplane wifi is garbage and wildly unreliable.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three hours from SF/LA to Hawaii would have a ton of takers at a premium price even at coach class. It makes that trip doable for a long weekend.

At just under 5 it already is, I know a few people who do it. Hawaii is a bad example because its very much a leisure market. They can barely make business class work with recliners let alone a Concorde replacement. That’s why they put their worst business class on the route. This will end up running LAX-JFK-LHR in my opinion.

Would they be allowed to go supersonic for LAX-JFK?

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#155
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

biofuels or synthetics. not sure if they plan to own the fuel supply chain, so "net zero" may come through offsets to cover the impact of producing the fuels

Biofuels is ecological fraud. It is not sustainable. And is there a synthetic fuel plant with zero impact at any scale already? No, this is just wasting more fuel for the heck of it.

> is there a synthetic fuel plant with zero impact at any scale already? No, this is just wasting more fuel for the heck of it

cool, so you're on board with nuclear + hydro as a more sustainable base load solution than lithium-based batteries

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#157
post #30
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no substitute for F2F for some types of work. Everyone I know hates flying, even if it is lie-flat. If someone can reduce the pain of flying to UK/Europe and Asia by knocking a few hours off then I would definitely prefer it.

Timezone differences alone make F2F worthwhile, even if you're fully remote. A week here and there face-to-face on the same clock is valuable.

how? jetlagged meetings aren't known for their mental clarity

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#158
post #132

Overture is being designed to carry 65 to 80 passengers at Mach 1.7 over water — or twice the speed of today’s fastest commercial aircraft — with a range of 4,250 nautical miles. Optimized for speed, safety and sustainability, Overture is also being designed to fly more than 600 routes around the world in as little as half the time. Flying from Miami to London in just under five hours and Los Angeles to Honolulu in t…

This is not a winning proposition. Even if we presume these will fly from a VIP terminal so the time you spend at an airport is low, you still need to get there. I just can't see everyone being flown in and out on a helicopter but maybe my imagination is stunted. Once you begin to add up those hours, you are just not saving enough time for the surely astronomical cost. You'd need a much longer range for this to be a…

I think Boom's entire business plan is that they can do supersonic passenger jets for not astronomical cost. It's not like they're unaware of the Concorde.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#159

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?

No. There is no way they can compete with say Airbus's quality and build quality. If they think people are gonna trust their lives to a startup company kept afloat by current interest rates over Airbus, I got a bridge to sell you. If supersonic travel was in demand post-pandemic and rising inflation, interest rates, Airbus would've been all over it.

Eh, the aircraft manufacturers fuck up market projection too.

Boeing has almost entirely ceded replacement of its own 757 and 767 to Airbus since it offers nothing in that midsize range today. Airbus fucked up thinking that the A380 was going to make money, and it took them a while to get the A350 right despite pressure from airlines to actually compete with the B787.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#160
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The business class lay flat seats are pretty comfortable. I was able to sleep 8-9 hours on them, but was interrupted sleep. Better than nothing.
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