But prices have dropped steeply, democratising air travel to an unprecedented degree with an unprecedented speed. Practically anyone who can afford to go on holiday at all can afford to fly somewhere, rather than being limited to the range/speed of ground transportation. The kind of trips to Greece/Spain etc that are completely routine these days in northern Europe were once-in-a-lifetime experiences for my (reasonably well to do) grandparents.
Everybody loves hating on Ryanair/Spirit Airlines/increasingly dense economy class layouts, but the fact is that you can in many cases (if you're out early) buy a discounted premium economy ticket (or even if you're lucky business class) for what regular economy tickets would cost just 20 years ago, much less 40, and get a much better product.
The 747-400 costs $47.34 per nautical mile, the 787-8 only $27.35. Sure it's not as visible to the passengers (except indirectly in the form of cheaper tickets), but that is a huge improvement in an important metric.
Thus, the values would be about $11 for the 747-400. 6.37 for the 787-8.
In addition, at the $6 gallon rate, the newer 3rd generation 747, the 747-8 which uses the same engines (and I believe redesigned wings consistent with the 787-8) as the 787-8 is $42.49 compared with $47.34 for the older 747-400.
At the current $1.39 YTD per gallon price, the 747-8 costs $9.85 per nautical mile.
So it's definitely rare. Personally I love 777s--part of the attraction is the monster turbofans. Most long-range models have GE90 engines, which are total beasts. They incidentally have extremely low shutdown rates.
The 777 is my favorite also, it's a beautiful well-designed and well-built plane with an almost unbelievable safety record. (Barring being sabotaged by the pilot, or being shot down by a surface-to-air missile, which are hardly things you can blame on the aircraft itself.)
Still have not flown in a 787 as I mostly fly United and they don't have too many of them in the fleet yet. Ironically it's mostly 747s on the routes I regularly fly to Europe so I get to experience them regularly along with the odd A-380. (The latter a comfortable ride but just no poetry in the thing. It looks like a squashed frog.)
Note that Rolls Royce faces stiff competition with chiefly General Electric as the engine supplier for the 777 line.
Meanwhile many 747s are only in service now because fuel prices are relatively low. Once the prices go up they will likely be replaced by 777s or other models that are easier to fill up and cost less to operated.
I confirmed this recently with a United Airlines 747 trainer who was booked on the same 747 flight as I was. He loved the plane and didn't want to fly anything else.
When you think about it, those are enormous gains, but the passengers don't see it other than in the ticket price.
That said, apparently Airbus doesn't agree that 4-engined planes are going extinct, because they just recently finished a brand-new jet, the A-380, which requires 4 engines to fly. Go figure. Time will tell if that was a wise move on their part. But I'm guessing: no.
Peter Thiel says it's caused by pessimism, and that's a much better explanation.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530901/technology-stalled...
(I'm not related unfortunately. Joe Sutter's father Frank Sutter was born Franc Suhadolc in Slovenia)
The same thing applies in a much bigger way to travel to low-earth orbit. Costs escalate dramatically.
- People got quite nervous about the risks. Sure, there were a lot of highly publicised accidents involving aircraft, but it's still a heck of a lot safer than driving a similar distance (and especially motorcycling). For some reason, the whole world has decided that flying needs to be a huge amount safer than the alternatives, and that has a huge cost.
- Terrorists. You could imagine a world where taking a flight was like taking a bus. It has certain similarities, right? But thanks to various events, everyone's got to go through the security theatre each time they're at an airport. That creates costs.
- Oil prices and environment. Just about when the Concord was getting in the air, oil prices went up. More recently, we've figured out it might not be so wise to put more CO2 in the air. Costs go up.
- Industry organisation. For some reason, a lot of countries decided they needed their own airlines. That's not necessarily economically viable, because a lot of countries are quite small. But there's a whole system of these airlines now, some subsidised, that fragment the industry. I don't know enough about whether there should be fewer airlines, but it certainly feels like it's something that is harder to evolve when various countries are propping up their local carrier.
As for the tech, why shouldn't it just progress? All those costs I've listed would suck money out of research. If things were a bit different, there'd be more people looking at making better planes.
It starts out flat, then goes near vertical as the idea catch on and all the low handing developments are plucked and marketed.
then it flattens out again as new developments becomes harder, and the market consolidates.
Flight seems to have hit that second flat around the time of the Concorde and the 747.
And electronics seems to be hitting it right now.
Is that because most new technologies eventually reach plateaus? Or have unique factors -- like environmental concerns about supersonic travel -- held back progress in aviation?