A Chinese aerospace company has successfully completed the first test flight of a groundbreaking hypersonic passenger aircraft.
A Chinese aerospace company has successfully completed the first test flight of a groundbreaking hypersonic passenger aircraft.
Because it turned out that no one really needs to get between the UK and the US that quickly. If they do need to get between the UK and the US they’re prepared to pay less for it to take longer because the price difference is substantial.
Would certainly want to though. I hate sitting on planes and also get very little time off work, so wasting 12h of a trip for plane time is a lot to me. First class tickets are often 3x regular price and all you get is a bigger seat and slightly better food. I’d find way more value in a shorter trip than a first class ticket. Not saying I could afford it, but if it cost around 3x as much it seems feasible that it would sell at that level at least.
It was more than that. I’m 1996 round trip tickets were 7500, about 12000 in today’s dollars. I can get a round trip ticket under 400 bucks today for NYC to LHR. So it wasn’t 3x, but 30x the price.
Well Concord was mostly for business people so they weren’t buying their own tickets. Which was ultimately their downfall because a company would just decide to spend less money and make their employees sit on a plane for longer, it wasn’t really a personal choice the passenger was making.
I’m sure executives would disagree if their companies allow for it.
Not only nobody needs to do that trip that fast, but we’re not in the early 00’s anymore, and there has never been as many tools to communicate and collaborate remotely. So I’d expect a non-negligible part of these don’t even need to do the trip anymore if they want to save money and time.
To be honest conferencing was pretty easy even back in the days of Concord. It was kind of a pointless vehicle really.
But the status… /s
I’d say using “nobody” is unwarranted… some people might’ve needed at some point. Regardless, it’s not a need, it’s a want.