TL;DR
Airliners that fly faster than sound could still be on their way back, and the company building one still has airlines lined up. Boom Supersonic's Overture, a faster-than-sound airliner with United as a launch customer and conditional orders from American and Japan Airlines, is the main route to supersonic passenger travel in the coming years. What changed this week is the timing. United's chief executive says the 2029 date Boom gave for Overture is not going to happen and that "it's going to take longer." Meanwhile the rules that would let such jets fly over land are being written, and NASA's quiet supersonic test jet just flew coast to coast. Our odds that paying passengers fly faster than sound on a new airliner: chance it works 65%, likely by 2035, provided the key breakthroughs come through. For the full breakdown of the odds and a timeline of the breakthroughs that lead there, subscribe.
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