Denver (AFP) – American Airlines has agreed to buy up to 20 supersonic aircraft – Which is manufactured in North Carolina Pay a non-refundable deposit on aircraft that are still on the drawing board and years away from flying.
Neither US company Boom Supersonic nor the manufacturer provided financial details on Tuesday, including the amount of the US deposit.
American, which has also made options to buy another 40 Boom Overture planes, has become Boom’s second American customer after a similar announcement last year from United Airlines for 15 planes.
It’s been nearly 20 years since the last supersonic passenger flight made by Concorde, the Anglo-French airliner that failed to catch up due to the high cost – for both passengers and airlines.
Boom CEO Blake Scholl insists his company’s plane will be different when it first launches in 2029, with tickets costing around $4,000 to $5,000 to fly from New York to London in about three and a half hours.
“There are tens of millions of passengers traveling every year in business class on routes where the introduction will provide a significant increase in speed, and the airlines will be able to do so profitably,” Scholl said in an interview.
Bohm says his plane will have a top speed of 1.7 times the speed of sound, or about 1,300 miles per hour, and carry between 65 and 80 passengers.
Skeptics have questioned Bohm’s ambitious timeline, especially given the many years it took Boeing, the established manufacturer, to acquire aircraft or even modifications of aircraft approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Notably, Boom does not yet have an engine manufacturer lined up. She talks to Rolls-Royce and others.
“With a hypersonic jet, you don’t design a plane, you design an engine first,” said Richard Aboulafia, aviation analyst at consultancy AeroDynamic Consulting. “This is just a set of hand drawings for this engine to happen.”
Bohm says the plane will fly entirely using sustainable aviation fuel, often made from plant materials, which are currently in short supply and very expensive.
Boom, which is based in Denver and plans to build the foreground in North Carolina, says the program will cost between $6 billion and $8 billion. The plane is priced at $200 million, although other manufacturers routinely give airlines deep discounts.
Last month, Boom announced changes to the aircraft’s design to make it simpler and less expensive to build and maintain. The most striking change was the transition from three engines, including a variant on the tail, to four identical engines under the delta-shaped wings.
The four-engine aircraft market is shrinking. The Boeing 747 is mostly used to carry cargo now, and Airbus discontinued production of the A380 in 2021. The vast majority of jet airliners flying today have two engines.
The four-engine planes are “much worse in every respect, from the economy to the emissions,” Abulafia said. “Nobody wants more engines, the answer is fewer engines.”
While American and United have said they will buy the Boom plane, Delta Air Lines, another large US airline that could use it for long international flights, is not ready to join them.
“I still have more questions than answers,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said Tuesday on Fox Business. “Until we are confident that we can actually generate a reliable return on the aircraft, that is not where we are investing.”
American Airlines said the supersonic plane would change travel.
“Looking forward, supersonic travel will be an important part of our ability to provide services to our customers,” said Derek Kerr, the airline’s chief financial officer.
The union representing American pilots has questioned the timing of the airline’s investment in planes that will not be available for several years at best. American has struggled this summer, canceling more than 9,300 flights since June 1 — more than double those in United, Delta or Southwest — according to FlightAware.
“Investment in today’s operation should be the sole focus of management,” said Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the union. “If there aren’t any changes in how this airline’s management and pilots are scheduled, these are just supersonic cancellations.”
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