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American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

boomsupersonic.com

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Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#221

Post by chrisseaton »

chx wrote: post #186
darrenf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is on the Boom site, and it certainly doesn't look like regular cattle class https://boomsupersonic.com/static/images/overture-experience...

I can't see how that seat could possibly transform to lie flat and it's a dud if they try to get people to pay big money for non-lie flat seats.

I guess the idea is that the trip is such a short hop that you don't need to lie flat. For example train seats in first in the UK aren't lie flat either, because they're only ever a few hours at most.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#222

Post by mh- »

chx wrote: post #186
darrenf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is on the Boom site, and it certainly doesn't look like regular cattle class https://boomsupersonic.com/static/images/overture-experience...

I can't see how that seat could possibly transform to lie flat and it's a dud if they try to get people to pay big money for non-lie flat seats.

I'm not sure lie-flat is a must if the flights are so much shorter. I'd rather have a comfortable seat for working if we're only talking about a 3 hour flight.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#223

Post by cjrp »

mshook wrote: post #213
wongarsu wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaving off enough hours to be able to board a plane in the early morning, have a two hour business meeting in the destination and fly back and arrive home in the late evening of the same day is a huge draw to some.

Except it doesn't really work. It could almost work flying west then east to get home but regular Concorde flights couldn't give you the option to fly back the same day. BA001 LHR 10:30AM -> JFK 09:25AM BA002 JFK 08:30AM -> LHR 05:15PM AF002 CDG 10:30AM -> JFK 08:15AM AF001 JFK 08:00AM -> CDG 05:45PM That's why flying westbound supersonic is less of an advantage. Because as you can see, flying west, your day is still…

Seems doable if the schedule was tweaked though? LHR 9:30AM - JFK 8:25AM, JFK 1:30PM - LHR 10:15PM

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#224

Post by ChicagoBoy11 »

I'm surprised by this... I'd imagine that all of the BS we've added to airport procedures (under the guises of "security", mostly), would sort of help negate the typical "Concorde" case. In a universe where you still need to show up umpteen hours early for check-in, baggage, security, does having a plane that may cut a fraction of the time of the trip really seem compelling?

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#225

Post by simonebrunozzi »

IMHO a better title would have been:

"American Airlines to buy 20 Overture aircraft from Boom Supersonic"

When reading the original title, I had the impression that the company was going to be acquired by AA.

Instead, it's "just" an order of 20 aircrafts.

Note that this is not a new move by Boom, they played this card when raising money when they pitched at YC demo day, and they're doing it again. The problem I have with this is the following:

> agreement to purchase up to 20 Overture aircraft, with an option for an additional 40. American has paid a non-refundable deposit on the initial 20 aircraft

It's "up to 20", and not "20", and there is a non-disclosed non-refundable deposit. If it's a, say, $10,000 per aircraft, total of $200,000 (ouch, should I say... up to $200,000?), it's a just a cheaper ad for AA, and ammo for the CEO when the board asks "where are you innovating?".

Good luck to Boom, but I am unconvinced this is a viable company and a viable business.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#226

Post by mshook »

darrenf wrote: post #204
moffkalast wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concorde also didn't work out for management reasons and generated most revenue right before retirement when they they finally lowered ticket prices and stopped flying them half empty like the absolute idiots they were.

Do you have a source for this? Like other folk who have replied, this is the opposite to my understanding, at least from the perspective of BA (I know nothing about AF). heritageconcorde.com[0] talk about almost 20 straight years of profitability: > Concorde earned £500 million for British Airways after tax profit, this was between a loss making 1982 and a highly profitable 2000 with just seven aircraft. The first pr…

For AF, my understanding (and my source actually worked that side of the business) is Concorde got profitable with special flights (aka people renting the plane to travel the world) not from just your regular scheduled flights.

But keep in mind neither BA nor AF really paid for their fleet...

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#228

Post by vimy »

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #224

I'm surprised by this... I'd imagine that all of the BS we've added to airport procedures (under the guises of "security", mostly), would sort of help negate the typical "Concorde" case. In a universe where you still need to show up umpteen hours early for check-in, baggage, security, does having a plane that may cut a fraction of the time of the trip really seem compelling?

Seems more alluring as a private jet.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#229

Post by staticassertion »

chx wrote: post #132
alphabetting wrote: post #3

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…

> 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.

This is true for getting to JFK from Manhattan, which is 40 minutes with 0 traffic and then the airport is absolutely massive and has long lines, but Boston -> Logan or SF to SFO is minutes. I think my total time from my door to my gate is ~30-40 minutes when I fly SFO.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#230

Post by quercusa »

gbronner wrote: post #106
akmarinov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only very expensive, but basically coach class all the way through, even for the rich people.

Concorde was not very pleasant to sit in from what I've heard. Great food, but the seats were basically economy 2x2.

I've tried the seats at the Intrepid museum. They are very tight and the window is tiny. I'm sure the food and drinks helped.

https://www.intrepidmuseum.org/The-Intrepid-Experience/Exhib...

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