The only metric with planes that matters is $/mile. A soon as something flies far enough with enough payload, energy density stops being an issue. It doesn't matter that the plane is going to be four times the weight if it gets from A to B at a fraction of the cost. Think 100$ hamburgers turning into 5$ coffee runs because of vastly reduced fuel cost and maintenance cost.

You see the same pattern with EVs. All of the cool ones are really heavy compared to the ICE cars they compete with. But they still go really fast and pretty far. So, you see much heavier Tesla's making formerly cool ICE sports cars look sluggish and outdated. And lets be honest, those never had any kind of fuel economy (or range) worth talking about because they burn fuel at obscene rates to get that speed. Being obscenely noisy and inefficient was kind of the point of owning one.