"Boom's vision for the future of commercial aviation, combined with the industry's most robust route network in the world, will give business and leisure travellers access to a stellar flight experience." "United continues on its trajectory to build a more innovative, sustainable airline and today's advancements in technology are making it more viable for that to include supersonic planes," the airline's CEO Scott Kirby said. "We've got our eyes firmly on New York to London for inaugural service and we will evaluate opportunities beyond that."Īside from being fast, Boom said Overture was expected to be the first large commercial aircraft to be net-zero carbon emitting, being designed specifically to operate on 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel. "It has a tremendous amount of value for a big chunk of our high-end business customers," United's vice-president for corporate development Mike Leskinen told Bloomberg. United cited New York (Newark) to London in three-and-a-half hours, to Frankfurt in four hours and San Francisco to Tokyo in six hours as key routes that may be serviced. With a range of just under 7,900 kilometres, United said the plane could connect more than 500 destinations in nearly half the travel time of conventional subsonic airliners.Ĭivilian supersonic air travel is banned over land in the US, but United sees potential on numerous international routes. The aircraft is designed to fly at nearly 20,000 metres, travelling at up to 1.7 times the speed of sound while carrying between 65 to 88 passengers.
The airline has also signed up for an option to buy a further 35 of the supersonic jets if things go well.īloomberg reports that the list price of the airliner is $US200 million ($261 million) per plane, making the initial deal worth $US3 billion ($3.9 billion), and potentially up to $US10 billion ($13.1 billion) if the option on a further 35 planes was taken up in full.īoom is hoping that Overture will take to the skies for testing by 2026, with the first commercial passengers carried by 2029. Under the terms of the agreement between the two companies, United will buy 15 of Boom's Overture airliners, once they meet the airline's safety, operating and sustainability requirements.
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