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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

I'm all for doing engine research. But the economics seem pretty clear that if you can't afford to routinely fly in luxury first class suites on 787s, you probably wouldn't be able to afford to fly in a supersonic jet either. (Which means that it's unlikely anyone would build one given that there are barely any all-business class large jets today.)

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Hey, while we’re making up economic data, let me take a crack at it. Business class is usually full when I fly. When I flew to South Africa this year (15 hours direct) from JFK, I asked if first class always sells out, and I got a chuckle and a yes. So, I believe there is a sufficiently large market for supersonic flight. However, you need to be able to fly supersonic over land.

You'll find many of those higher class seats are filled by frequent flyers on upgrades. Business is almost always full because there are more frequent flyers who bought economy who are eligible for upgrades (or want to use their own mileage to upgrade) than there are left over business class seats.

Flights in the 8 hour range, sure. But Air Canada's ~15 hour Vancouver-Australia flights are notorious for never having any upgrade space available.

I'm guessing that new supersonic jets will be taking the (formerly) 16 hour routes first.

YMMV, I guess. I can get upgrades using miles pretty routinely from US East Coast to Asia.

The other challenge with those sorts of routes though is that you also need a lot more range than the Concorde had. Its range was around 3500 to 4500 miles depending on various factors.

There have been a number of studies on the viability of commercial supersonic flight.

https://niskanencenter.org/blog/supersonic-overland/

While your anecdotal experience may have formed your opinion, others have taken a deeper look into the problem.

[Update]

You should read the section on economic myths: http://www.supersonicmyths.com/#supersonic-myths

“Everyone stands to benefit from supersonic transport. Nonetheless, early technological adoption among a luxury or business class of consumers is a recurrent phenomenon in the spread of innovation. As Everett M. Rogers showed in his seminal work, Diffusion of Innovation, early adopters are often willing to pay a high initial price for a new product due to greater resources and the pursuit of social status. From there, firms reinvest profits in product design and use the benefits of volume and scale to introduce subsequent product versions with more and more mass market appeal. This is how cell phones went from a luxury used by Wall Street's Gordon Gecko to being in the pockets of poor farmers in Africa. It's also the strategy Tesla Motors is using to mainstream affordable electric vehicles.”

Actually, supersonic business jets (which is what the research in that link is focused on) seem like an entirely plausible market. It's a market that already pays a huge premium for convenience.

That's a big difference from viability as a commercial passenger jet in a market where so many people buy on price. Not impossible. But the economics seem very challenging.

you also need a lot more range

If you can fly suborbital, range becomes much less of a factor, since you can avoid most of the atmosphere.

>However, you need to be able to fly supersonic over land.

that current restriction of supersonic overland looks to me the same as that 4 miles per hour restriction on the car speed during the second half of the 19th century in England. Had all the good sounding reasons too ... (note: i grew up in USSR at a navy base and supersonic booms were just a fun part of my childhood, so i don't share that animosity toward the boom :)

Lots of people in business class and first class are frequent fliers on upgrades. The number of people paying full fare is relatively small proportion.

Suddenly that plane hauls 2000 people a day instead of 500.

You will have to factor in the 4x associated costs as well (fuel, maintenance , flight crew, airport costs, etc).

I have 0% knowledge on commercial flight OPEX, but at first glance it doesn't sound as simple.

The less time on the ground, more money a company makes.

This probably is true on the air too, granted that you have a similar efficiency and fuel combustion.

Doesn't really work like that. There are substantial dwell times in the cycle that no amount of enroute speed can elimanate...

Unload the passengers

Unload the luggage

Clean the cabin

Load the next set of passengers

Load the luggage

Taxi to the runway...

A supersonic jet is almost certainly going to be (much) smaller than a widebody subsonic passenger aircraft. Furthermore, you probably wouldn't need to make the seating super-luxurious but people paying premium prices are still going to expect at least the level of seating and service you get in domestic US business.

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