Return of supersonic jets and customer experience 

Ekelem Airhihen, a chartered accountant, is an airport customer experience specialist. He can be reached on ekyair@yahoo.com and +2348023125396 (WhatsApp only)

Come 2029 supersonic jets are expected to be rolled out for passengers. This is expected to significantly reduce flight times. A report in the Economist of August 20, 2022 disclosed that American Airlines has placed an order for 20 of the aircraft. It also reported that earlier last year United Airlines ordered 15.

African aviation stakeholders need to begin to think seriously about the return of the supersonic commercial flight not only to understand the perception of passengers but as well find out what customers expect from the services and what factors target customers consider most important.

Commercial supersonic flight, able to fly above the speed of sound, has not been around ever since Concorde made its last trip in 2003. British Airways’ first Concorde passenger flight took off in 1976. Presently, the Concorde is the only commercial supersonic passenger aircraft to travel at more than twice the speed of sound. It was a technological accomplishment but not a commercial success. In 2003, all Concorde aircraft were taken out of service.

The aircraft could operate on long-haul intercontinental flights about 2.6 times faster than current subsonic aeroplanes and business travellers were its primary target.  Such a technological leapfrogging innovation required several engineering, economic, environmental and other factors which are very important for its commercial success.

Supersonic flight means flight that is faster than the speed of sound. As a result of temperature and other atmospheric conditions there is always a variation in the speed of sound in the Earth’s atmosphere. Near sea level, it is typically about 760 miles per hour (mph). At the cruising altitude of commercial aircraft, where the air is much colder, it is often less than 700 mph. The ratio of an aircraft’s speed divided by the speed of sound is known as its Mach number. Presently, current commercial aircraft are subsonic, with Mach number less than 1.

When an aircraft is in flight, it disturbs the air through which it moves. The disturbance includes air flow around the aircraft as well as travelling pressure waves that humans perceive as sound. For flights that are subsonic, sound waves may be emitted in all directions. In supersonic flight, because the aircraft is flying faster than sound travels, all disturbances are behind the aircraft. Instead of sound waves, the pressure waves combine to form a shock wave, which people on the ground perceive as a sudden sonic boom after the aircraft passes.

Community objections are one challenge to supersonic flights. High subsonic noise levels during takeoffs and landings as well as sonic boom generated considerable concern. Many countries were reported to have banned Concorde flights from their airspace; so many planned routes, especially those over land, were prohibited. The U.S. civil aviation regulations are reported to prohibit overland supersonic flights in the continental United States. This contributed to Concorde’s low utilisation rate and effectively limited its flights to a limited number of oceanic routes between big cities, including scheduled trans-Atlantic flights between London and New York.

As a result, premium air travel on selected routes failed to make Concorde flights a sustainable business. Filling the seats on Concorde flights with paying customers was not easy. Concorde tickets were generally priced at about twice the regular first-class airfare on a comparable subsonic flight. Reports say that in 2003, a round trip across the Atlantic on the Concorde cost £8,000, almost twice the first-class ticket price on a Boeing 747. So, as the attraction of novelty wore off, the airlines found it difficult to fill the seats, often flying at less than half capacity. Another challenge was that the plane was also impractical for carrying cargo or mail as there was limited cargo space on the Concorde. The airlines were therefore unable to generate additional revenue from these sources, which are important supplemental revenue streams for subsonic transoceanic passenger flights.

Safety and perception is another challenge about supersonic aircraft that needs to be addressed. Air France New York-bound flight 4590 took off from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on July 25, 2000. It was found out that during acceleration for take-off, one of the tyres ran over a strip of metal on the runway that had fallen from a previous aircraft. This led to a series of events that made the aircraft crash into a hotel about five miles from the runway.  All 100 passengers and nine crew members were killed, along with four hotel employees on the ground. This was the only fatal accident in the operational history of the Concorde. However, it generated significant media coverage and damaged the reputation of the Concorde for safety. In 2003 all Concorde flights were discontinued due to financial losses.

There may be an entirely separate market for supersonic business jets. There could be demand for higher-priced flights offering much shortened travel time.  Many large corporations fly their top executives aboard private aircraft for security reasons and to minimise time wastage, so supersonic planes could be attractive for this purpose. It might get businesses thinking about a shared-ownership model similar to the time-share model in real estate, which would allow potential users to gain access to supersonic flights at considerably lower cost than full ownership. So supersonic flights could be a unique service that would enable an airline to differentiate itself from the crowd.