United ordering 15 supersonic jets from startup

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y_p_w said:
Did you see the video? The examples they used were Newark-Heathrow, Newark-Frankfurt, and San Francisco-Narita. I think United just returned to JFK, but not for international flights. I found it rather odd that they've settled on EWR as their NYC area hub.
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Not sure what your experience is in that region, but I used to make lots of flights to the New York City area on Continental/United and EWR was, and is,the largest of the three airports that serve NYC. It’s hard to visualize until you actually travel by plane into New York, but the other two airports, JFK and LaGuardia, are smaller and all of these airports are smooshed and crammed for space as is everything in that area due to the high density. Most of the time, I often needed to get into Midtown in the city and EWR was right across the Hudson River and actually a lot more convenient than flying into JFK and taking the A-Train all the way down from Long Island. There can be situations where the other two airports are more convenient but it really depends on what part of the city you’re headed to. Having used all three airports, I actually preferred EWR because it had more gates, more flight options, and getting into Manhattan was not a big deal as train service regularly ran under the Hudson and brought you right into Manhattan. Given United Airlines’ size, I can see why they would choose EWR versus the other two. I believe JetBlue highly utilizes JFK and I don’t remember which airlines relied more on LaGuardia. Delta airlines maybe? I should mention however that the customer service with JetBlue always far exceeded that of United. Not sure how things are these days although I generally feel that flying in an airplane can be the equivalent of being on a crappy bus with wings and that was in better times. Sadly, I am too young to have experienced air travel during the era of my parents and grandparents because listening to their descriptions of it, it was an entire other universe from what we have today and I’m including business class in that assessment. 🙄
 
DuckRyder said:
The TU144 and concord look similar and this looks similar to them... must be something to the design.
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Vortex Lift...

Vortex lift works by capturing vortices generated from the sharply swept leading edge of the wing. The vortex, formed roughly parallel to the leading edge of the wing, is trapped by the airflow and remains fixed to the upper surface of the wing. As the air flows around the leading edge, it flows over the trapped vortex and is pulled in and down to generate the lift at high AOA. In other words its immune to deadly stalls...

VortexLift.webp
 
PimTac said:
It looks very similar to the Concorde.

I read that the idea is to have these on select routes like NYC-London or LAX-Tokyo for example.

It is very forward thinking on the part of United.
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Another idea is SFO/LAX to China. SFO-PVG is well known at United for having lots of Apple employees use it as a shuttle(I think Apple is a very important client to United as well) to visit their manufacturing base in Asia.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/25/20932487/apple-united-airlines-sfo-terminal-upgrades
 
nthach said:
Another idea is SFO/LAX to China. SFO-PVG is well known at United for having lots of Apple employees use it as a shuttle(I think Apple is a very important client to United as well) to visit their manufacturing base in Asia.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/25/20932487/apple-united-airlines-sfo-terminal-upgrades
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SJC would make more sense, but there are no direct flights to Asia now. They used to have a few - I remember ANA had nonstops to Osaka before they pulled out.
 
DuckRyder said:
The TU144 and concord look similar and this looks similar to them... must be something to the design.

Rumor has it that Concorde tickets were very expensive, wonder if this will be so expensive to operate the tickets have to be prohibitively expensive.
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Concorde tickets were $12-15,000 round trip, yet they still lost money on every flight.
 
97prizm said:
Concorde tickets were $12-15,000 round trip, yet they still lost money on every flight.
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Actually, BA was making money on Concorde when it was retired. I went to war college with the Royal Navy Reserve. The Commodore was BA’s chief pilot for Concorde. Over a glass (or three, or four) of port, we talked about Concorde.

That it was profitable was one of his big talking points.

AF might have been losing money on it, and keeping it flying out of pride, but BA was making money with the jet.
 
y_p_w said:
SJC would make more sense, but there are no direct flights to Asia now. They used to have a few - I remember ANA had nonstops to Osaka before they pulled out.
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I think I’ve seen ads for JAL having a non-stop between SJC-NRT/HND on BART. Probably to target Hitachi(San Jose) and Sony(PlayStation is headquartered in Foster City) staffers in the Bay Area.
 
nthach said:
I think I’ve seen ads for JAL having a non-stop between SJC-NRT/HND on BART. Probably to target Hitachi(San Jose) and Sony(PlayStation is headquartered in Foster City) staffers in the Bay Area.
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There are just way too many Japanese tech companies in Silicon Valley to really point to just one or two. I've interviewed at Sony's electronics office in San Jose. Also - I don't think Hitachi is much of a player any more as most of their divisions have been sold off. I'd think that it's the combination of all these companies that would determine whether or not it makes financial sense to offer a San Jose to Japan route and whether or not just SFO would be enough. Also - I think the ANA flight I was thinking of was to Narita.

One of the more interesting (and not necessarily related) things was that when visiting Intel on several occasions, I heard announcements for ground transportation to their air shuttle flights. They fly out of SJC for Silicon Valley, but they also fly out of smaller, more convenient airports like Hillsboro, Oregon and Mather Airport (near Folsom - the former Mather Air Force Base). The one in Arizona mentioned here must be at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.

https://community.intel.com/t5/Blog...know-6-secret-Intel-U-S-benefits/post/1334280

Intel’s Air Shuttle​


Fly the friendly Intel skies!
Fly the friendly Intel skies!

It may not offer frequent flyer miles, but Intel has a fleet of private airplanes available to all employees at major campuses. It’s a key element in face to face collaboration and innovation. With delicious snacks, beverages, and wifi – you’ll almost wish all air travel could be this easy – plus there’s no taking your shoes off for security in our private terminals. It’s not uncommon for me to jump on the shuttle early morning in Arizona and meet my colleagues in Oregon for an important issue. I’ll back in Arizona in the early evening just in time for dinner.
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PimTac said:
I didn’t see the video. I had read this news on another site.

I have heard that Newark is the preferable airport in that area to JFK or LaGuardia from a passenger perspective. I know someone who just flew out of JFK on a domestic flight. They were surprised at the condition of the airport terminal.

There may be other reasons to use EWR.
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I have a plant I go to in Vineland, NJ. In summer, I can fly FWA-PHL direct. It’s 60 minutes from PHL and $12 in tolls to get to the plant. Out of season, the flight goes thru DTW or ATL and has a 3+ hour layover.

Between airport wait times, potential delays, and layovers, the 9.5 hours to drive it direct usually wins. I have a rental car for the same number of days and the rental fuel vs the airline ticket cost + parking is always favorable to the company. I don’t bother with NY or NJ airports…
 
That is one seriously cool looking plane.

That being said.....rollout in 2025, fly in 2026, and flying passengers in 2029? Uh, ok I'll believe that when I see it. They arent even going to have the first operating engine until next year, last I read. Their optimism far surpasses my own.

I applaud their efforts and hope their ambition doesnt outrun their supply of money before they have a bunch of these in the air with paying passengers on them. But I think the marketing people are engaging in some wishful thinking. Its great to see the XB-1 making successful flights, but a full size supersonic airliner with paying passengers on a little over four years from now would color me seriously impressed. I wasnt alive when Kennedy planned to go to the moon before the end of the decade and a lot of people thought he was nuts for saying that, maybe I'm as wrong as they were. I hope so.

A lot of people a whole lot smarter than me are working on this, so I could be really wrong. Wouldnt be the first time.

Still waiting on those mass market flying cars though.....
 
Astro14 said:
Actually, BA was making money on Concorde when it was retired. I went to war college with the Royal Navy Reserve. The Commodore was BA’s chief pilot for Concorde. Over a glass (or three, or four) of port, we talked about Concorde.

That it was profitable was one of his big talking points.

AF might have been losing money on it, and keeping it flying out of pride, but BA was making money with the jet.
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I read Concorde by Mike Bannister last month, and as someone who has very little interest in air travel, I found it fascinating!

As you say, he mentions that BA were making money on Concorde up until Air France (who were operating at a loss) decided to call it quits. The on-going support costs which were shared 50% by BA and 50% by Air France ended up 100% in BA's lap which then made it unviable.

I'm too old to have remembered anything to do with Concorde. I'd have been 10 when they retired it. But, I can't help but feel that the human race went backwards when they retired Concorde without a successor.
 
alarmguy said:
Amazing that commercial passenger jet air travel speed hasn't increased in 70 years. :unsure:
On a successful sustainable scale.
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Yeah - performance has been driven by market forces.

What really killed Concorde was the 747. It dramatically reduced the fuel cost per seat-mile. Took about 1/3 of the fuel that Concorde did to move a passenger the same distance.

When fuel costs spiked, in the early 1970s, the price premium for Mach 2 got so high that most passengers were unwilling to pay it. Production of Concorde ended.

Subsequent fuel price shocks kept airlines, and builders, focused on efficiency.

Airliners kept getting better and better - more and more efficient. Airplanes like the 787 fly at the same, even slightly higher, speed as the 707, but at less than 1/3 the fuel burn.

Amazing progress where the market demanded it - in cost.
 
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