Japan Airlines invests $10m in supersonic jet company Boom

Denver-based startup Boom Supersonic has won a $10m investment from Japan Airlines in its push to build a supersonic passenger aircraft it claims will be faster, quieter and more affordable to fly than the Concorde. Boom has 76 pre-orders for a 55-seat plane that it says will be able to slash the flight time from New York to London in just three hours and fifteen minutes. The firm has said its jetliner, expected to enter service by the mid 2020s, will fly at speeds of Mach 2.2, 10 percent faster than the British-French joint-venture Concorde, which popularized supersonic jet travel in the 1970s. JAL has the option to purchase up to 20 Boom aircraft and will assist efforts to hone the aircraft’s design and passenger experience, the companies said Tuesday. It is the first commercial airline to back the venture with investment. Virgin Atlantic is among airlines to have placed pre-orders with Boom, 14 years after the final flight of the Concorde, to date the world’s fastest passenger airplane. Industry figures are still debating whether regular supersonic flights, banned over the US in 1973 by the FAA, are feasible around modern cities due to the shock waves from the sonic booms the planes create. Boom says its aircraft, priced at $200m, will produce a sonic boom at least 30 times quieter than the Concorde, which was also dogged by high operating costs and fuel consumption and low capacity utilization. Boom estimates that fares for its aircraft would be 75% lower than the Concorde and comparable to current business class tickets, due to better fuel efficiency.<br/>