If Blake Scholl has his way, supersonic passenger planes that can zip from New York to London in as little as three hours and 15 minutes may soon be a possibility.
Scholl, CEO of Denver-based aerospace startup Boom, is working with Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic to create and commercially launch the ultra-fast planes in 2023. Meanwhile, test flights are expected to start late next year, according to New York magazine.
The 40-to-50 seat supersonic jet would be able to travel at the speed of sound — that’s almost three times faster than today’s standard planes.
Less travel time would be a godsend to anyone who has ever had to suffer through leg-numbing flights over the holidays. Using this service won't be cheap, however. A round-trip ticket would reportedly cost approximately $5,000. That means the souped-up aircraft would likely be used to ferry celebrities and the über-rich at first (read: the 1%). Hopefully, with time — like all innovative, first-of-its-kind tech — these trips would eventually end up dropping in cost, so us normal humans could eventually use it, too.
This isn’t the first time that a company has pushed the boundaries of flight. British Airways' Concorde flew the rich and fabulous around the world in little time for approximately $20,000, but it was later discontinued due to high operational costs and a high-profile crash in 2000.
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