American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by acchow on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @03:10PM (#32487351)

I wonder how much larger the population of people is today (vs Concorde's era) that are willing to pay for these supersonic ticket prices. 3x? 10x?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by _ph_ on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @03:19PM (#32487494)

This could be a very important enabler. As you can see in other "luxus" industries, the amount of affluent people on this planet has ballooned. I don't know any numbers, but I got the impression that the private airplane industry had a strong growth in recent years. And flying supersonic with an airline for sure is way cheaper than any private flight.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by runarberg on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @05:06PM (#32488923)

Will that also be the case if they actually have to pay for the carbon they emit in the process?

Currently airline passengers don’t have to pay for their carbon emissions, but I doubt that’s gonna last for much longer (we are in an emergency after all). And I’ve seen elsewhere in this thread that the emissions are likely gonna be somewhere between 5x and 10x of normal sub-sonic flights. The price of this extra carbon emission will probably be something that even affluent passengers will want to skip.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by _ph_ on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @05:13PM (#32489028)

Good question. Currently fuel for international flights isn't taxed at all, as far as I know. Which explains the popularity of flying. Fuel for cars costs several times more, at least here in Europe.

Starting to tax airplane fuel would be an important step towards reducing the CO2 output. Possibly that would trigger a switch to synthetic and carbon neutral fuels.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by peyton on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @10:18PM (#32491547)

It’s less than 2% of global CO2 emissions. If your tax scheme shaved off 15% of demand, you’d be saving 0.3% of global CO2 emissions—equivalent to a few months of global emissions growth.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by runarberg on Wednesday August 17, 2022 @12:12AM (#32492251)

The thing is that we have failed miserably at reducing our carbon emissions, and we are simply out of time at the moment. Any action we do is already too late. All we can do now is mitigate the worst effects.

There will be a global cost scheme for carbon at some point in the future. I hope it will be a simple tax (imposed by each state by some international agreements; although some weird cap-and-trade scheme with limited effect is probably more likely given how governments are behaving) and I wouldn’t be surprised if it is mostly in effect by the time Boom plains are in commercial operations.

Whatever the scheme there will probably not be an exception for international flights (I’m guessing countries will be focusing their efforts on exempting their militaries). The thing is that every industry is going to try to get a discount, and that is simply not possible (we are in an emergency after all). So it doesn’t matter if it only shaves of 0.3% of global emissions (which honestly would be a disaster and not acceptable in the long run). What matters is that all industries (except the arms industry; lets be realistic here) will have to suffer equally for their sustained pollution.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by elzbardico on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @09:22PM (#32491167)

No, of course not. This is for us, the plebe.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by peyton on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @10:14PM (#32491517)

It’s like 2–5 million people with more than $10 mm. Regionally correlates with real estate and equities.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by andruby on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @05:05PM (#32488914)

I’m not sure that it would even be larger now than before.

Subsonic flight has become much more efficient, cheaper and when paying for higher class, more comfortable. This is one of the reasons often mentioned for the economic demise of the concorde. The audience willing to pay $6000 on a concorde ticket, could now spend $4000 on first class subsonic with a seat that fully reclines into a bed. They can fly a little longer at night but sleep the whole journey.

Wendover did a good economic analysis of the concorde: https://youtu.be/n1QEj09Pe6k

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by ghaff on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @05:32PM (#32489225)

The number of people who will pay--or can make their companies pay--$500+/hour for a handful of saved hours on a flight which mostly won't go into incremental productive work is miniscule. Most business travelers aren't international lawyers or consultants flying across the Atlantic for a quick get together. But pay a bit more to fly a bit more comfortably to be more rested/as a perk and maybe even save on a hotel room night? Quite a few people, even if not the typical traveler.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Over... by reaperducer on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @05:45PM (#32489388)

I wonder how much larger the population of people is today (vs Concorde's era) that are willing to pay for these supersonic ticket prices. 3x? 10x?

At least.

Even if you think price is a barrier, think about how many more millionaires and billionaires there are in America and Europe today than there were just 20 years ago.

Tack on our society's rediscovered fascination with conspicuous consumption ("influencers"), and I don't think filling seats will be the problem today that it once was.

[ Parent | on HN ]