But they do want more companies in their team when the successor comes.
At the same time they will stretch A220, then they can hopefully move production from A320 to A321.
I’m not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but I had the same thought. I can’t imagine that building an airplane is more complicated than self-landing rockets. He could integrate them with Starlink too so customers on the flight had actual wifi that works.
It’s a different kind of complexity.
On the starlink side, customers will get that anyways. The existing plane operators will start using it for their internet.
https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/boom-yc-w16-is-building-an-...
https://boomsupersonic.com/press-release/boom-supersonic-fir...
Or even more accurately: it's complicated :)
[0] https://boomsupersonic.com/press-release/boom-supersonic-ann...
>At the June 2019 Paris Air Show, Blake Scholl announced the date for first flight was pushed out to 2020, six months later than previously planned...
>Medium-speed taxi testing was performed in November 2023, with the aircraft reaching a top speed of 94 knots.[22] Following testing, in January 2024 Boom delayed the first test flight to early 2024 to implement safety improvements (wikipedia)
And that's just the single seat prototype. Once they've flight tested that they have to do the full design and prototype testing for the passanger model.
I want them to compete, but the reality is that no-one has made an economically viable SST despite half a century of trying. If there's anything that modern air travel proves it is that the price of the ticket far outweighs ANY other factor, and SSTs. are not capable of being cheaper than subsonic transport. At least not with our current paradigm of energy/fuel being a major cost of flying.
The exit plan for all aviation startups in the US is to sell out to Boeing or Lockheed (preferably with an acquihire), or be folded into their supply chain. Zero exceptions.
They're basically tiny bunkers, surrounded by fences and barbed wire.
The government should go the EU way. Build the tracks but lease out the actual operations to private companies that can bid for track and station time.
For example, I suspect if Amtrak was forced to compete with private firms for track time in the NorthEast corridor you’d see an explosion of service and a dramatic drop in prices.
I suspect flights like Boston-NYC and DC-NYC would reduce dramatically.
And maybe even more importantly there would be greater lobbying efforts from private firms to upgrade the tracks and improve the routes.
Currently it’s very difficult for Amtrak to push for that because it’s quasi public nature means there is limited profit incentive and no opportunity to raise capital from the private sector.
That would change if at least a couple of private firms could get going in the NorthEast corridor.
And short EU flights with low cost carriers are a lot cheaper than US domestic flights. The US doesn't have these ultra low cost carriers.
For the US, it makes sense to have a single main carrier for much of the core system.
> For example, I suspect if Amtrak was forced to compete with private firms for track time in the NorthEast corridor you’d see an explosion of service and a dramatic drop in prices.
That is most probably wrong. Train operations cost once all the infrastructure is paid for is really not that different government vs private. There is simply not that much to compete on.
In fact some of the things that can be improved most, like ticketing and scheduling can be improve more for the costumer if there are less options.
Europe has seen very little actual private companies that compete very well and make a significant difference. There are a few things you can differentiate on. Some budget trains just use shit old rolling stock for example. Just finding creative ways of paying people less.
The reality is, most of the cost is in setting up infrastructure including signaling, maintaining that, then buying nice trains and training good people.
Some private train companies have gotten some investment to buy some nice train sets, but nothing about that is all that amazing. If the government operator had the funds, they could do the same and run the same route.
The reality is that competition on fixed rail infrastructure might be worth doing but its not some magical cost cutting tool.
Politicians who want to offer their constituents good train service should the the ones lobbying. The reality is, if you have private rail companies, they will mostly lobby for ways to reduce work pay because that where they can compete against Amtrak.
That doesn’t rule out bankruptcy.
Edit: for example by buying overpriced military equipment, tax benefits, or ...
More likely private capital, though, or some Hyperillionaire from Seatopia.
While running through the Spreewald, my troops also enjoy oral readings of such classics as "Libertarian Aryan Rocketmen will Save the West from the Red Horde".
And death, of course. Hot fiery death.
Boeing's not going anywhere as long as the US exists. It is the state monopoly on civil aviation. However, allowing these rogue MBAs to run amok with it over the last 20 years has been an absolute disgrace. Any sane, democratic, society that had not been beaten into the dust by regulatory capture and corporate lobbying would have cleaned house on them and sent people to jail after they killed hundreds of people through pure greed. It's a pathetic state we're in now to realize that it's probably going to take another 200+ dead Americans on a domestic scheduled flight before anything even remotely material happens about it.
Is there a connection between flag carrier airlines and aircraft manufacturing? That never occurred to me, since most flag carriers fly Boeing and Airbus like everybody else.
But I guess for larger states, like Aeroflot / Air China, they probably subsidize the local manufacturers?
In any case, I'm inclined to push back against your assertion that this is the "same reasons [sic] all other countires" have them - I don't think very many flag carriers are supported because of manufacturing concerns, or that the relationship is similar to the US State's relationship to Boeing. That seems like a stretch to me.