Supersonic aircraft wouldn't be used on shorter domestic routes. As you say, the time savings are insignificant. More importantly, sonic booms prohibit most over-land flights.

But supersonic transport could win for long-haul flights over ocean. Depending on the direction, SFO-TPE takes 11-14 hours. Going at mach 3 would cut that down to 4 or 5 hours. Airlines could charge significantly more for such speed. Faster trips also mean that each plane can make more trips per day. For a trans-pacific route, a 777 takes over 24 hours to go back-and-forth once. 300 passengers go west, 300 passengers go east. A mach 3 transport, even if it had half the capacity, could ferry more people in the same time period. If fuel costs were low enough (unlikely, I know), the supersonic craft could actually be more profitable than the 777.

Concorde didn't have the range for trans-pacific flights. If you compare its times on very long-range flights with today's flights they're much less impressive than shorter flights: its best JFK-Heathrow is under 3h (2:52:59) to a subsonic ~7h, but its best Heathrow-Sydney is 17h (17:03:45) to a subsonic ~24h.

Concorde had a range of 3900nmi (7200km/4500mi), a 777-200LR has a range of 8500nmi, an A340-500 HGW has a range of 9000nmi

The comment I replied to discussed supersonic transport in general, not the obsolete Concorde. That's why my comparison used a hypothetical SST with longer range and higher cruising speed.

Range aside, wasn't the problem with London-Sydney that most of the route is over land, and can't be supersonic for noise reasons? At least, IIRC, that's what killed the Concorde in the potentially very lucrative US east-west coast market.

Heathrow-Sydney required a lot of subsonic sectors though (eg over India).

In theory Concorde could perform a one-stop Sydney to LA service (stopping at Cassidy International, Kiribati), supersonic the whole way.

Just remember the sonic boom thing was more of a political problem than anything else.

If say the US had come up with something else than just a wooden supersonic airliner (Boeing 2707), I guess swallowing the supersonic pill would have been easier.

Plus realistically, it's not like military planes are not allowed to fly supersonic over their own countries. Really, solutions, routes, compromises could have been found, it's just no one had the guts to.

When British Airways retired one of its Concorde to Seattle, it flew from New York / JFK to Seattle, it flew supersonic over Canada. Flight time: 3 hours and 55 minutes. Regular flight time is more like 5h30. Supersonic all the way would have been even quicker...

The RAF have to get special permission to fly supersonic over land. Last time it happened (to intercept something) people called the police!

FWIW, this article doesn't concern regular supersonic flights but 'fly-pasts at air shows and made available for corporate and special events, as well as for private charter.'

As to your question, it rather depends on the cost, doesn't it?

To start with, it saved about 4 hours on the Paris/NYC connection, not "an hour or two." If it were only $400 more to save 4 hours of overseas travel, then many would jump at it, and find it a real advantage.

I really wonder how they could even do fly pasts at air shows.

The only technical reason (technical not economical) Concorde doesn't fly anymore is because the type certificate, aka the airworthiness of the aircraft, was surrendered by Airbus, hence grounding all the fleet and making it unlawful to fly it.

So to fly it, they would need that to be reinstated.

For the Avro Vulcan, they went through a different aerospace company for that.

I'd love to be wrong, but I doubt Airbus would let anyone fly one of its Concorde...

They could still fly the aircraft within the UK on a restrictive Permit to Fly, rather than on a type certificate.

That does not require manufacturer support, it's similar to US Experimental classification. But it would not permit carriage of passengers.

As far as I'm aware, XH558 flew on a Permit to Fly from the CAA, hence why it never left the UK. Note that being on a Permit to Fly restricts it to VFR.

Sure, but the cost rather depends on physics.

Concorde wasn't $400 more than an equivalent flight. It was >$11,000 more than a similar comfort premium economy class seat, and that's after the British government had underwritten the losses from the design program (around $2000 per passenger per flight in today's money)

Certainly. But sandworm101 asked about regular supersonic flights as a general concept, and not specifically about Concorde.

FWIW, the full economics must note that people with a lot of money are more likely to hop on a business jet and get point to point service. When Concorde was designed, business jets that could fly non-stop between US and Europe had just barely entered the market. (The Gulfstream GII, May 4, 1968 vs. first demonstration flight of the Concorde 2 March 1969.)

> Shaving an hour or two off the flying time

Concorde crossed the atlantic (JFK to Heathrow) in ~3h15 (flying time, excluding ACT delay and the like), a standard subsonic flight takes ~7h.

I feel like the best use case is international flights. Being able to cut down the time significantly would be a huge improvement.

Honestly though I think shaving off an hour or two is worth quite a lot. There are many people who have conditions, like claustrophobia, people with knee and back issues or hell just regular people get uncomfortable when you're flying for hours and hours. My last two flights were both almost 6 hours each way and I was incredibly sore and ready to get off. It's anecdotal, sure, but I don't know a person who doesn't feel the same way.

Anything that improves the quality of life is good and when these types of planes are more ubiquitous the prices will drop and they will become normal. See Concorde Mark 2 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/eng...

And if those people flew international business/first, they'd be a lot more comfortable and it would likely be cheaper than an SST. The Concorde specifically was actually rather cramped. Certainly compared to today's seats up front in a widebody but even compared to first class seats of the time.For me, an 8-12 hour flight is a bit boring but, honestly, it's not really uncomfortable if you fly business and that's the relevant comparison to an SST.

BA now operates a number of the old Concorde flight numbers (BA1, notably) as business-class only flights on an A318 from London City to JFK, with a fuel stop (and customs and immigration pre-clearance at Shannon) on the westbound flight (due to London City's short runway). I do wonder if Concorde would be more profitable nowadays following that example, seating a very small number in standard business lie-flat seats. (Though maybe one doesn't actually need actual flat seats, given flights are all under four hours.)

LA-NY is a key route for SST but was blocked because it was overland. This was one of the main reasons it took forever to become profitable and also why only two airlines ever flew them, and were virtually given the planes.

Even spending two hours in the airport at each end doesn't even equal half the trip if I'm taking a 10-hour flight. And it's only 80% of the trip if I'm taking a 5-hour flight.

I fly coast-to-coast regularly, it's about 12 hours door-to-door when I get a good connection and not even 7 of those hours are in the air.

Sounds like the problem there is layovers.

yeah, I used to fly London-San Francisco regularly. About 11 hour flight time. With hand luggage only, that came down to 16 hours door to door (based on hotel in Palo Alto or Menlo Park), of which 1h30 was travelling between home and London Heathrow.

The moment you need connecting flights is when you start racking up the extra time rapidly.