I think there are thresholds there. Reducing a 12-hours long flight to 8-hours long flight makes no practical difference to people traveling. Cutting it down to 6 hours might start. Cutting it down to 2-3 hours (or under an hour, as SpaceX is proposing) enables new use cases for which people might be willing to pay premium. Suddenly, a company can send someone to a meeting/conference on the other side of the world and have them back the same day.

Traveling for business, I've paid extra for a flight that cut my coast-to-coast travel time from 8 hours to 6 hours (can't get nonstop flights to LA from my airport). That was the difference between "do I visit my client today for a few hours or do I go straight to the hotel and see them tomorrow".

The difference wasn't worth paying Concorde prices, but it was an extra $200 and since my billing rate is over $500/hr and considering the hotel prices in LA, the client was happy to pay it if it meant seeing me the same day I flew in.

What are you doing for $500/hr? I'm always looking for new ways to climb the ladder.

I'm an information security consultant. I don't make $500/hr, that's just what my company bills clients for my time. I make a small fraction of that :)

I haven't imagined the cases like yours, but that's exactly the thing I was aiming at - there are thresholds for which a shorter trip makes a qualitative difference, which is worth paying a premium for.

Almost everyone I know who flies recreationally would pay to reduce 12 to 8, and I have done so myself. Maybe those routes/budgets are not a big enough proportion of the overall flight volume?

30% more for a plane ticket to add an extra half day to vacation (landing at noon vs 3-4pm) is something i'd do; I already do with minimizing legs and length of layovers. How many* people willing to pay more are the key as the flight needs to be filled.

I wouldn't for any personal international trips, honestly. With the current air network, you can generally find a route that takes you in when you want it to (more or less), and that first day is already so disorienting that I don't think adding a few hours to it even if you can't find such a route is going to really affect the vacation as a whole that much.

Business is a different story since I wouldn't be paying directly and those trips are generally more fast paced and require you to be at 100% soon after getting off the plane. Those extra hours could help you finish preparing for a presentation or something.

Longest flight is currently 17 hours, 40 minutes assuming concord speeds that would save over 10 hours and again on the way back. That's just short of a full day less flight time round trip.

Granted that's the outlier, but nothing says these aircraft need be limited to concord speeds either.

I don’t know, I fly Marseille-Frankfurt-SFO every month and cutting my 11.5 hour leg down to 8 would be a big win for me. I’d pay a business class fare for an economy seat if it cut 4 hours from my travel time. Tourists probably wouldn’t care so much, but for business travel — I’d definitely be interested.

Are we forgetting the security lines and 2ndary transport times?

For a 1-2hr flight within my region, I need

a) 30m at least of security time (let's assume passenger willing to pay has pre-check/global entry/clear/et)

b) 30-60m to get to the airport. same for arrival.

c) must arrive by boarding time or airline can deny you (about 45m at least).

So that's like 3-4h for each flight (e.g. 6-8h total roundtrip) for a door-door connection, and that's the safe minimums. If security is overloaded or traffic is jammed (or train is delayed), you risk missing your flight.

A business day is still lost, but it's possible with an early flight that an early or midday meeting could be attended on late notice - which might be an acceptable compromise for your average moderate company C-level to avoid using a private jet.

You left out parking and taking a shuttle into the airport. Same for returning. That’s at least thirty minutes.

And don’t forget deboarding which seems to take a least 20 minutes. And waiting for your luggage.

For purposes of this discussion I'm assuming a wealthy business traveler (limo/uber/lyft to airport so no parking + all carry-on).

I also forgot customs/border control for international flights.

Of course, for personal/family, this adds probably an additional 30-60m + 30 for international.

I check luggage maybe one in twenty flights. And rarely drive myself to the airport. So your mileage will vary. That said, I hate cutting flights close so I always try to arrive st the airport 90-120 minutes before the flight even if I essentially never need to have done so.

I love Space X, but this was my first thought when intra-planetary flight was announced. You save a lot of flight time, but if it’s gonna take the same or more preflight time, the savings are vastly diminished.

I would love it if someone (countries) starting optimizing for full travel time. But the incentives are not there. Airports are shopping malls. Security ensures you have to buy more liquids in the mall.

Imagine: 20min train from King’s Cross / Union Station to the heart of the airport, 10 min travel to gate, 5 minut security, 15min boarding.

Equally futuristic: Plane tickets working like train tickets. Buy a flight from LA to SF. Show up (almost) any time. Take the first available. Of course optimized via estimated arrival times and demand calculations.

> 10 min travel to gate, 5 minut security

Many small/medium European airports manage this for flights within Europe. At least in Dublin, Gatwick, Frankfurt Hahn, the security has been under 10 minutes for me, without buying any fast track passes. Add to that mobile boarding passes from most airlines eliminating the need to do anything beyond "weigh bag at automated machine without a queue, put sticker on, drop at bag drop" in the check in area, and it's a much faster experience.

The issue comes when flying to the US, where at least in Dublin, there's a second TSA-run security station behind the main security for flights going to the US. This is the only one where I've had delays of over 20 minutes for security in Dublin (which is still much better than I've had in the US, including a 1hour security queue in JFK once).

This is also where online check in is usually not an option, where there's a long queue, and where I get US customs interviewing people in the line to make it even longer.

So it seems to be the US specifically causing this problem

PeopleExpress used to do this. When it first launched, customers purchased tickets for a flight without booking a particular flight or seat. They would show up to the airport and get seated on a first-come, first-serve basis on the next available flight. All flights were non-stop shuttle flights (back and forth between two destinations).

It was phenomenally successful for a few years. It's not clear that this model could be replicated today due to air travel security concerns.

Also depends on range. If a supersonic flight makes, say, London or JFK - Sydney doable, then you've just shaved a lot of time off with connections as well.

In the UK I think it is common to think about the longest plane trip as flying to Australia, it is after all a trip to the other side of the world.

Concorde did London-Sydney in around 17 hours due to the refueling stops[0].

The new Dreamliner direct route will do London to Perth in about the same time, sub-sonic but no stops[1]. I wonder if mentally that will feel to people like it is equivalent...when in reality there is another 2000 miles (a 4 hour flight) to go. I suppose many people will do a stopover in Perth and travel the next day, a stopover int he same country being that much easier of course.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde#Records [1]: https://dreamliner.qantas.com/article/qantas-to-fly-non-stop...

The cabin in Concorde was smaller and more cramped. 17 hours with stops would have been challenging.

I think Concorde may have been the most beautiful plane ever built and an incredible achievement for the time. But long-haul really needs a new kind of hyperliner - preferably clean, if we're going to be writing a wish-list.

It was never going to be a popular option with Concorde technology.

Concord had almost no capacity. less than 100 passengers. And its seats were way less comfortable than even business class nowadays. Its ok for a two hours flight between the UK and JFK but beyond that the feeling of travelling premium fades very fast.

You're not really going to knock off 8 hours unless you're doing like LA to Moscow non-stop. LA to London is theoretically only 10 hours in a 747. Sure that'd be like 4 hours in the Concorde, except that it didn't have the range for that so you'd have to add at least an hour, probably two to circle around JFK refuel then take off again.

Not just theoretically, LA to London (LAX to Gatwick or Heathrow) is 10:15-10:30 — there are several flights per day. (interestingly it's 11:10-11:30 in the opposite direction because of the wind patterns).

> 50$ seems crazy as supersonic flight is going to use far more fuel, but it also means the aircraft, pilot, and flight attendants can make more trips. So, a minimal cost increase might be possible.

This is the premise of SpaceX's BFS. Though each flight will be more expensive than a 747, they can fly another BFS each hour.

I certainly would pay double price for half the flight time in most cases.