Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back

Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by pcl on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @02:24PM (#12790274)

5.) When I get off the plane, hand my luggage directly to me instead of making me wander around an airport looking for a terribly slow conveyor belt to eventually get my bag

It turns out that this has been studied quite a bit. You need to walk halfway across the airport because it reduces the amount of time you eventually stand staring at the belt waiting for your bag, and most people prefer "occupied time" (e.g., walking halfway across the airport) to "unoccupied time" (e.g., waiting at a baggage claim right next to the flight).

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waiting...

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by Animats on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @03:27PM (#12790895)

When I first came to Silicon Valley, going to LA worked like this.

- Drive to SJC. Park in lot next to terminal about 100 feet from PSA station.

- Walk into adjacent PSA terminal section. Pay $14 in cash to clerk. No reservation needed. Register receipt is boarding pass.

- The hourly B-727 pulls up outside and lowers rear stairs. Passengers get on with carry-on luggage.

- 58 minutes flight time to LAX.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by oh_sigh on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @03:45PM (#12791053)

SJC->LAX for $14?

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by nostrademons on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @03:58PM (#12791144)

Passenger screening on commercial airlines began in 1973. $14 in 1973 ~= $75 in 2016. You can get SJC -> LAX tickets on Southwest for $59 today, albeit booking in advance. The schedule is almost hourly, too. You just have to book a month out to get decent fares.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by AckSyn on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @05:23PM (#12791758)

> You just have to book a month out to get decent fares.

Which is a travesty. This makes absolutely zero sense, even after Econ 500 level classes I took a decade ago. It's greed, plain and simple.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by nostrademons on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @05:49PM (#12791999)

Makes plenty of sense from the airline's perspective. It's price segmentation: people who book 2 days out usually really need to get somewhere, whether it's an important business trip or a death in the family, and so they're willing to pay a lot.

It sucks from the customer perspective - in particular, if you have a sudden illness or death in a family member, the last thing on your mind should be how the airline is about to fleece you. International airlines often have bereavement fares for these situations, but US domestic carriers view it as a profit opportunity. It's often a double-whammy because your travel schedule is often unpredictable in these cases and most airline don't allow flight changes without huge penalties.

Interestingly, I've heard that plane tickets often drop significantly in price if you book really close to departure (eg. < 1 day out). Never tried it, and I don't see it in a quick spot check of the Internet, but it makes sense from an economic perspective - the seat is otherwise going to go unfilled, so any money is better than no money.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by figgis on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @01:46AM (#12794151)

It's worth noting I know at least Delta offers "bereavement fares" and I would be surprised if the other airlines did not offer the same discounted service.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by ghaff on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @08:46AM (#12795975)

It's actually something that airlines have been phasing out. Delta's one of the last few US airlines to do this and its discount is fairly small.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/07/death_in_the_family...

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by moftz on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @02:37PM (#12790405)

At the airport closest to my house, the baggage pickup is right next to the exits to the taxi and pickup lanes. This means that I only need to carry all my stuff for a short distance to a car or shuttle rather than carrying it through the terminal. This airport has a tram system linking the building housing the ticket desks and security to the actual boarding terminal so having everyone haul their larger bags on the tram would be inefficient and just cause more headaches, especially for those travelling with children or the disabled.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by lazaroclapp on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @02:30PM (#12790333)

Sure, but the point is you could, in theory, redesign both plane's cargo holds, and airport systems, so that the moment you get out of the plane (or within 2 min tops of docking) your bag is there in a square of the floor labeled with your name and sorted alphabetically. Of course, doing so might not be cost effective, but I bet it remains cheaper than supersonic flight.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by pcl on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @02:43PM (#12790474)

I think it'd be pretty tough to get a plane's worth of bags from the hold to anything resembling an orderly display within 120 seconds of the first person getting off the flight. Let's assume that the collection location needs to be at least twice the wingspan of the plane. That's 400 feet for a 787, or 140 feet for a 737. There's a benefit to consistency at a given site, so let's stick with the 400-foot number. That's 90 seconds right there at typical walking speed (3 mph). So, to meet the SLA, we'd probably need to open up the entire hold, length-wise, rather than pulling out bags from one or two doors. I'm not an aeronautical engineer, but designing a door into the length of the fuselage seems like it could be on the same order of complexity as designing a plane for supersonic travel.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by icebraining on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @03:24PM (#12790866)

Let's assume that the collection location needs to be at least twice the wingspan of the plane.

Why? But in any case, you could have a fast conveyor belt directly from the plane to the location, no need to carry them by hand.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by ghaff on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @03:47PM (#12791062)

Meanwhile in the real world you have the automated baggage system that they attempted to install in Denver.

http://calleam.com/WTPF/?page_id=2086

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by 0xffff2 on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @02:51PM (#12790557)

In what theory? How would you actually go about accomplishing this? I'm sure the airlines would very much like to know how to unload a full plane's worth of cargo in 2 minutes.

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by marme on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @05:39PM (#12791886)

they actually built systems for this but it has never been implemented. Basically you make the cargo hold completely removable from the plane. There is a box that slides in and out of the bottom of the plane. Someone just drives up with a fork lift style vehicle pops off the container and takes it inside the terminal where it can be dumped out onto the conveyor belt. I am surprised they have not automated the entire baggage system. It seems like it would be feasible to automate just about everything. You know where the plane is going to park every single time just fix that position and have something under it which can directly attach to the plane and pull the bags off and conveyor them under the ground and into the terminal and it can auto sort the bags to the right destination. It would not be easy to build but it is doable and would remove the need of large percentage of workers in the airport

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by jessaustin on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @03:45PM (#12791048)

Perhaps this would require bomb-bay doors on the bottom of the hold?

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Re:Boom Wants to Bring Supersonic Civilian Travel Back by nostrademons on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @03:41PM (#12791007)

With small planes it basically works like this - on many of the tiny regional turboprops, your baggage is waiting by the side of the tarmac as you exit the airplane, and you pick it up before you enter the terminal, not at baggage claim.

It's mostly a problem of scale. Unloading 20 bags in the 5 minutes or so before the passengers start to deplane is no problem. Unloading 500 bags would be.

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