News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Why hasn't commercial air travel gotten any faster since ... by throwawayffffas on Monday February 10, 2025 @09:48PM (#43008381)
There is a point in getting faster. The Concorde run profitably for the later 20 years of it's lifetime. At its best it did the New York to London route in under 3 hours. At more than double the speed of a subsonic flight. I have taken multiple 7 hour and 3 and a half hour flights and I would pay a significant premium to cut the 7 hours in half. It's not that I would have more of the day available. It's that I would spend less time in the plane. Being in a plane for a long haul is miserable. In the nineties if flew profitably for a 10% markup over regular business class.

I would wager a supersonic jet liner could make a lot of money crossing the Atlantic or the Pacific even today. Sure for short hauls it makes no sense.

Btw, Boom is working on supersonic private jets,they recently flew a scaled down experimental jet at supersonic speeds.

Re:Why hasn't commercial air travel gotten any faster since ... by bobthepanda on Tuesday February 11, 2025 @03:20AM (#43010332)
Concorde’s problem was once the lie flat business seat was invented in 2000, it was substantially more comfortable than what was, by all accounts, a plush but very narrow seat due to the narrow fuselage.

Throw in the third flight crew member and the economics fell apart.