United Airlines is trumpeting itself as a mold-breaking innovator with its announcement that it will buy 15 or up to 50 supersonic airliners from Boom Supersonic—if and when they are built, which Boom says will be within five years.
But despite the confidence of the announcements, many questions remain, including whether there is a viable commercial market for a successor to the long-ago Concorde, and whether it can meet the environmental demands of today's industry. For United, that may not matter: With the announcement and an earlier one that it will buy a large fleet of electric air taxis, it has accomplished its PR goal.
But the Boom project, which the company calls 'Overture,' is a long way from carrying United's passengers from Newark to London or San Francisco to Hong Kong; Boom has not yet flown a scaled-down prototype it has built, and is working with Rolls Royce on developing an engine that can manage the flight and burn only 'sustainable' fuel.
Even allowing that the engine might be built, and that sustainable fuel might become more available and less expensive than now, economic viability becomes the next question. Boom and United say they expect the cost of the plane to be similar to that of a 787. but the 787 can carry 300 passengers, while Overture will carry 88.
Simple arithmetic says those seats will have to sell as premium seats—a market segment United has increasingly specialized in, with more premium seats per plane than most of its competitors. But these super-premium seats, with prices well above normal first-class, are likely to sell only to the very rich, or to top-exec business class passengers.
And right now, and possibly into the post-2029 future when United says it expects to see the plane in service, that segment is the weakest in recovery because businesses have come to realize how many of their important meetings don't need to be in person.
Again, do the arithmetic. Right now, United business-class seats from Newark to London are selling at around $3-5,000 one way. Send three execs to London round trip and you're looking at $25-30,000. Would it be worth that to pay twice that price to arrive 2-3 hours earlier?
Other issues remain as well: the number of airlines that will find this fits their route and business patterns is limited; Japan Air Lines is the only other one to express real interest so far. With few to be built, the R&D cost can't be spread over large numbers of planes—and the supply of spare and replacement parts will be limited. And if the plane's carbon profile is even a tiny tad worse than that of slower planes, it will face issues there.
Ultimately, the market will make the decision—and the likely answer is: We told you so in 2003. On the other hand, if you're a true believer in supersonic, you might point out that a few years ago, I doubted the future of Bombardier's C-series planes, now the phenomenally successful Airbus A220.
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