America's skies may soon open up to supersonic travel. But there's still a big problem
Editor's note: Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travel's weekly newsletter. Get news about destinations, plus the latest in aviation, food and drink, and where to stay.
The skies over the United States could be wide open for much faster air travel in the near future. Not just because passenger planes capable of breaking the sound barrier are in development — for the first time ever, they could be allowed to do it over American soil.
Even during the days of Concorde, the supersonic plane that retired in 2003, commercial flying at speeds above Mach 1 over mainland US was strictly forbidden, largely due to concerns over noise pollution from sonic booms.
Now moves are afoot to lift that restriction with a bill recently introduced in the Senate, and a similar measure in the House of Representatives. That means if the long-awaited 'Son of Concorde' ever gets here, it will have more potential supersonic routes than its predecessor.
Currently, there are several supersonic passenger jets in development that aim to reach speeds beyond Mach 1 without crashing loudly through the sound barrier. NASA's experimental X-59, expected to begin flight testing in 2025, aims to reduce noise to a 'sonic thump.'
And then there's Colorado-based Boom Supersonic, which is developing the Overture, the first actual supersonic passenger plane since Concorde flew into the sunset. Opening up US skies could be a step toward removing some of the hurdles it faces in becoming a reality.
'It's a super exciting year for us,' Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom told CNN.
Much of that excitement comes from the company's XB-1 demonstrator aircraft breaking the sound barrier in January and again in February. It did so without creating a detectable sonic boom by flying at what it calls 'boomless cruise' — also known as 'Mach cutoff' — where sound refracts away from the ground at speeds close to the sound barrier in certain atmospheric conditions.
Boom aims to build the first prototype Overture engine by the end of the year and, if all goes according to the company's very ambitious timeline, American Airlines, Japan Airlines (JAL) and United Airlines could all take delivery of their very first Overtures by the end of the decade.
Scholl's sales pitch is very appealing. Who doesn't want to be able to work a full day on the West Coast, jump on a supersonic flight east that evening, and either be home or in a hotel in New York or D.C. before midnight?
The Overture would make those trips possible with a cruise speed of Mach 1.7 that could slash the duration of a transcontinental flight by up to half.
Overture's 80 passengers could make those speedy flights in relative comfort. Renderings show luxurious seats comparable to the contemporary business class offering on any subsonic plane.
Whether airlines are keen is another matter.
The range of the Overture is one challenge. At about 4,888 miles, it's enough for a transcontinental flight over the US or a transatlantic hop to Europe but not enough to traverse the Pacific without a stop.
And the much-touted commitments from American, JAL and United are all non-binding and, at least in the eyes of the industry, viewed as more fluff than substance. Critically, none of the airlines list the deals among their firm capital commitments in stock exchange filings.
'Boom is working in opposition to the most durable single trend in all of flying since the jet age began,' Jon Ostrower, editor-in-chief of trade publication The Air Current, said on The Air Show podcast in February. 'Airlines, fundamentally, since (the dawn of the jet age) have wanted more efficient aircraft.'
By Boom's own estimates, the Overture would burn two to three times more fuel per premium seat — first or business class — than a subsonic plane, such as the Airbus A350 or Boeing 787, on an intercontinental flight.
Another estimate from the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation puts the Overture's fuel burn at five- to- seven-times that of a subsonic long-haul jet.
Airlines would recoup those added fuel costs through higher airfares. Researchers at Worms University of Applied Sciences in Germany described those fares as a 'supersonic premium' in a paper published in the Journal of Air Transport Management last year.
They estimated that airfares on the Overture would need to be roughly 38% higher than the current business class fares on a New York-London flight to turn a profit. Put another way, supersonic flyers would pay roughly $4,830 one-way from New York to London in June based on current average one-way airfares of around $3,500 on Google Flights.
The researchers at Worms were confident that when flying westward travelers would pay a premium for supersonic flights because they 'fly back in time,' as one of the report's authors Jan Belke told CNN. That time gain could translate into real monetary benefits. Eastbound, however, the financial case was weaker due to hours lost across time zones.
While Boom's Scholl acknowledged that Overture seats will likely be priced out of budget for most passengers, he said there's still a solid business case.
'If you hit a mainstream price point — and business class is a mainstream price point — I think of it as the [Tesla] Model S of supersonic flight, it's not yet for everybody but it is a pretty big market segment,' he said.
The question is how many will pay that supersonic premium?
Digital communications have vastly improved from the days of the Concorde. Video calls have reduced the need for in-person meetings, and with flyers now able to answer emails or even join a virtual meeting in mid-air, in-air downtime is rapidly shrinking on subsonic flight.
Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory and a long-time skeptic of Boom's business case for the Overture, estimated that Boom needs $12-15 billion to bring the Overture to market, but has only raised around $800 million to date.
Boom had about $700 million, according to its last public funding disclosure in 2023.
Asked how much Boom needs to develop Overture, Scholl put the number at 'under $2 billion.' He cited numerous cost savings the company has found eliminating 'inefficiencies' in the existing aerospace supply chain by, for the most part, integrating production under its own roof.
This integration, Scholl added, also speeds up the development and production process. That gives him confidence in achieving its aggressive timeline of flying the Overture by 2028 and handing the first planes over to airlines a year later. Ostrower called the timeline unrealistic.
Of the many challenges ahead of Boom, one is regulatory approval. The Federal Aviation Administration's certification process has slowed dramatically since the Boeing 737 MAX grounding in 2019 and 2020.
Boom's timeline allows for just a year of flight tests; Airbus took about 18 months to certify the A350 from first flight in June 2013 to the first delivery in December 2014.
Scholl seems unfazed by this, expressing confidence in Boom's ability to meet its targets and produce planes that, in his words, 'delete the friction of travel' by going a whole lot faster than today's jets.
'There's no guarantee of success here — statistically failure is the most likely outcome — but it's definitely possible,' Scholl said. 'The technology is there, the market is there, the passengers and airlines are there, the regulations for overland, I believe, will be there in relative short order. We just have to execute.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Republicans balk at changes to Trump tax bill as deadline nears
WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders are in crunch time as they attempt to get all corners of their party to agree on key provisions of President Donald Trump's signature tax bill. The Senate Finance Committee released its long-awaited tax portion of the reconciliation bill on Monday, making a number of changes to the version passed by their House colleagues last month. However, those changes have not been met with open arms by several in the GOP conference — which could threaten its passage if Senate leaders bring it to the floor for a vote next week. One of the thorniest issues tucked into the latest iteration is a proposal to lower the Medicaid provider tax to 3.5%, far below the current 6% tax. That has raised concerns among some lawmakers from states they say rely on that tax to provide health coverage. Medicaid provider taxes are taxes placed by states on medical providers like hospitals and clinics that then boost reimbursement from the federal government. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has been a vocal opponent to paring back the tax, although she declined to elaborate on her current stance. However, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., expressed his frustration with the proposal, arguing it would disadvantage rural hospitals. 'I've talked to our leadership constantly about this. And I was told, we've got a fix on the provider tax issue, we're gonna help rural hospitals,' Hawley told reporters on Tuesday. 'There's nothing in here for rural hospitals. In fact, what they're doing is lowering the provider tax to make it even worse.' It's not clear if that language will be amended before it's voted on. Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said on Tuesday they are 'vetting' the text. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, met with Senate Republicans during their weekly lunch on Tuesday to assuage any concerns on proposed cuts. When asked if there is any chance Republicans will change language related to the provider tax, Oz brushed off those concerns. 'Well, the details of the language are up to the leadership, but the specifics, the framework of addressing the legalized money laundering with state-directed payments and provider taxes must be in this bill,' Oz said. 'It should be in this bill.' Vice President JD Vance also attended the lunch, telling reporters they would 'work through' any concerns with the current language related to Medicaid. 'If we can't address that concern in your preferred way, is there another way that we can fix it,' Vance told reporters. 'That's just part of the legislative process' Meanwhile, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, predicted: 'I don't think it's going to stay in this form.' One of the other politically potent issues tucked into the reconciliation bill is the proposed expansion of federal deductions for state and local taxes paid, also known as SALT. While House Republicans proposed increasing the cap to $40,000 — with some income limits — the Senate lowered that number to just $10,000, which is the cap currently in place. That provision has already been rejected by the SALT Caucus in the House, which has enough lawmakers to tank the bill if they don't get their requested amount. Crapo said those provisions would continue to be worked out in the Senate and the House, acknowledging 'that's a very big piece, obviously.' 'We will work it out,' Crapo said. Republican leaders must also deal with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has said he would vote against the package so long as it contains language raising the debt ceiling. The Senate version includes language to raise the debt limit to $5 trillion, even higher than the $4 trillion ceiling proposed by the House. 'We roll around to 2026 elections, what are they going to say? 'Oh Democrats, you know, they're for borrow and spend,'' Paul said on Tuesday. 'But now the Republicans will have joined the Democrats in being for borrow and spend.' The text release starts the clock for senators to finalize the package, get it approved by the Senate parliamentarian, and vote on the measure before the end of next week to meet Republicans' self-imposed deadline of July 4. The parliamentary process could take several days as each provision must be reviewed by the Senate adviser to ensure they adhere to the strict rules of reconciliation. Once the package passes the Senate, it will then be returned to the House for consideration. From there, Republicans will likely need to convene what is known as a conference committee between House and Senate leaders to negotiate a compromise package in order to avoid a legislative tennis match.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Republican plans to cap student borrowing could shatter an everyday profession
A series of changes to long-running federal student loan programs tucked into the Republican tax plan has doctors panicked and struggling to find GOP allies. The Senate education committee's portion of President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful' billincludes a new cap on how much people can borrow for medical school and other professional programs that is well below the sticker price most students are facing. Lawmakers are also proposing to nix a class of federal loans graduate students use to cover housing and other non-tuition expenses. For low-income and first-generation college students with aspirations of becoming physicians, these plans, if enacted, could squash their dreams, according to medical college leaders. As the full Senate irons out the bill and Trump rattles school finances with funding freezes, doctors' groups are asking Congress to preserve the more generous loan options or risk a sharp drop in who's studying medicine — a profession that's already facing a shortage. While part of the stress on poorer students comes from the ever-increasing cost of higher education, the bill would likely push more of them toward private loans that require a co-signer, which are out of reach for many, and come with steeper interest rates. 'A lot of our medical schools, mine included, have a lot of first-generation college students. When they come into medical education, more times than not, they don't have co-signers,' said John L. Hummer, president of Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine, a school with campuses in New Mexico and Florida for which 81 percent of students depend on the federal Grad PLUS program Republicans are looking to eliminate. The Senate education tax bill establishes a $200,000 ceiling on federal student loans for professional degrees, like medicine. But the median cost of attending four years of medical school for the class of 2025 is $286,454 for public institutions and $390,848 for private schools, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. It's a range that exceeds the costs many doctors now serving in Congress paid when they earned their degrees. Many did not respond to inquiries from POLITICO about how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would affect medical school enrollment — and those that did were not sympathetic about student debt. 'You're looking at a person, a first-generation college student, who went to medical school, and didn't borrow money,' Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who sits on the Senate HELP Committee, said. 'I worked my tail off. Anyone who is paying more than $100,000 to go to school is making a huge mistake.' Marshall graduated from the University of Kansas School of Medicine in 1987, when the average in-state tuition for a public medical school nationally was around $4,696. That sum in today's dollars is about $13,300 — far less than what the Kansas program costs in 2025. Members of the medical community believe limits on federal loans or steering students to borrow from private lenders will exacerbate a long-running national physician shortage the Association of American Medical Colleges projects could be as high as 86,000 doctors by 2036. David Bergman, senior vice president of government relations and health affairs at the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, said students at medical schools his group represents have said it's been difficult to access private loans. Some lenders, like PNC Bank, hold student debt for which about 90 percent of private loans have a co-signer, while others had interest rates as high as 16 percent — nearly twice that of a Grad PLUS loan. 'The consequence of all this, of course, is that it's the low-income students who are going to suffer the most,' Bergman said. 'They may not have great credit, so then they may not be able to get the loans. Or they may get higher rate loans that put them further in debt.' One former Trump administration official shares this concern. 'I do worry about the assumption that the private sector is going to step in,' said Diane Jones, a former Education Department official from Trump's first term. 'Maybe they would, but I'm not sure they would step in to make loans available to low-income students.' Even some people in the lending business are skeptical the industry's bigger players will change their rules around co-signers. 'It just takes a lot more energy because it's riskier. Period. Banks aren't in the business of doing riskier products,' said Ken Ruggiero, co-founder and CEO of Ascent, a private loan company that will lend to applicants without a co-signer. 'They are in the business of talking to a person who has a very good income and credit score and letting the student sign the agreement.' The House version of the bill would also shut down Grad PLUS and put a cap on lending to graduate students for professional programs, putting pressure on the Senate to change course. But HELP Committee Chair Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said there needs to be more accountability for the high tuition prices writ large that aren't exclusive to medical schools. 'There should be some ratio between earning potential and what it costs,' Cassidy said. 'I met with neurosurgeons and cosmetologists and they had the same discussion about the cost of education.' Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians, which represents internal medicine doctors, related specialists and medical students, is skeptical that capping loan amounts would force medical schools to immediately lower tuition. Over the span of 21 years, medical school tuition has gone up 81 percent, outpacing inflation, according to AAMC. 'The reality is it's very expensive to train a physician — the amount of hours that go into lectures, labs, professors and housing and everything it takes to graduate is expensive,' Goldman said. He fears that some students may be dissuaded from becoming primary care doctors, a specialty where shortages are profound, especially in rural areas. Some in Congress have pushed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to address proposed limits to federal lending for student borrowers pursuing health care-related degrees. During a House Appropriations Committee hearing in May, Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) asked McMahon to take a look at aid programs that help students complete their degrees. 'We do know we have a shortage of nurses and doctors,' McMahon said. 'I think there are a lot of programs we can look at to train nurse technicians to get them into the marketplace faster.' Other Congress members have proposed student loan changes outside of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to address health care shortages. Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jackie Rosen (D-Nev.) introduced legislation in April that would create a student loan repayment program for specialists within medical professions who practice in rural areas. They also introduced the Specialty Physicians Advancing Rural Care Act in previous legislative sessions citing a dearth of providers in rural communities. 'The entire nation is dealing with a physician shortage, and rural communities in Mississippi have been particularly affected,' Wicker said in a statement. 'Congress can help provide a solution.' Jones, the official from Trump's first term, also worries that some students may have to forgo medical school because they won't be able to secure financial assistance. She attended medical school in the 1980s when the loan program she was using was suspended, ultimately leading her to drop out because she could no longer afford the program. 'I didn't have a parent who could co-sign for a private loan, and I didn't have access to any other resources,' she said. 'I personally lost the opportunity to pursue the career that I wanted, that I had earned the right to pursue.'
Miami Herald
4 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Senate official rejects food aid cuts proposed by Republicans in megabill
A top Senate official on Friday night rejected a bid by Republicans to slash federal food aid payments as part of their sweeping legislation carrying President Donald Trump's domestic agenda, sending party leaders scrambling to find another way to help offset the massive cost of the bill. The measure passed by the House last month and on track to be considered in the Senate next week would cover part of the cost of extending and expanding large tax cuts by cutting social safety net programs including Medicaid and nutrition programs, including SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. Republicans are moving the bill through Congress using special rules that shield it from a filibuster, depriving Democrats of the ability to block it. But to qualify for that protection, the legislation must comply with a rigorous set of budgetary restrictions meant to ensure that it will not add to the deficit. And the Senate parliamentarian, an official appointed by the chamber's leaders to enforce its rules and precedents, must evaluate such measures to ensure that every provision meets those requirements. Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian, ruled that the SNAP measure, which would push some of the costs of nutrition assistance onto the states, did not. That sent Republicans back to the drawing board to find another strategy for covering tens of billions of dollars of the bill's cost. She also said Republicans could not include a provision that would bar immigrants who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents from receiving SNAP benefits, according to Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee. The House-passed bill would require all states to pay at least 5% of SNAP benefit costs, and more if they reported a high rate of errors in underpaying or overpaying recipients. That provision was estimated to save roughly $128 billion. Senate Republicans were unsettled by that plan, arguing it would tee up insurmountable budget shortfalls for their states. They softened it, advancing a lower share for states to shoulder than that set forward by the House proposal. On Saturday, Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., the chair of the Agriculture Committee, said GOP senators would continue to try to find a way to cut food assistance that complied with Senate rules. 'To rein in federal spending and protect taxpayer dollars, the committee is pursuing meaningful reforms to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to improve efficiency, accountability and integrity,' Boozman said in a statement. He said he was looking at options 'to ensure SNAP serves those who truly need it while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.' Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, cheered the parliamentarian's decision, saying she had 'made clear that Senate Republicans cannot use their partisan budget to shift major nutrition assistance costs to the states that would have inevitably led to major cuts.' Several fiscal hawks in the House and Senate have complained that the legislation does not do enough to cut federal spending. With the parliamentarian's ruling, Republicans will have to find another way to slash a huge sum of money that their members also feel comfortable voting for. The ruling was just one piece of a broader review the parliamentarian is conducting of the Republican-written legislation. She was expected to work through the weekend evaluating the measure and instructing Republicans to strip out any provision she deems out of order. Should they fail to do so, Democrats could challenge the bill on the floor, forcing Republicans to muster 60 votes to advance it, which would effectively kill it since Democrats are solidly opposed. The parliamentarian also will determine whether Republicans can keep a provision that would block states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade, and whether they can use a budget trick that would make extending the 2017 tax cuts appear to be free. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
