[Retric]

They seem to have dramatically reduced fuel consumption, but fuel wasn't the issue for the concord the limited number of viable routes where.

Going from the Concrods 3550nm range to 4250nm should help with that as it opens up several new routes and longer routes see a more significant drop in travel times.

[galgot]

Still there are not much other routes you can go supersonic in one flight but trans-atlantic, which Concorde could do. Trans-Pacific which could have been the big money making route, like LAX to Tokyo, you need to be able to do 4737 nm... which makes the 4250 nm just short to make it. They would face the same problem the Boeing 2707 team had (or even Lockheed with the L-2000 project), no matter how they tried, too short range for trans-pacific in one Hop. So they would have had to make a stop to Hawaï, but then what's the point if you can take first class in a B777 and make the journey shorter in one subsonic flight. All other routes would be over land, and there again you can't go supersonic (for time being).

[fedorareis]

Seattle to Tokyo is only 4144nm so that might be a viable route especially for routes that would have already had a layover in LAX and/or Tokyo.

[thombat]

In part that will depend upon its ETOPS capabilities, i.e. how far it can be trusted to fly after an engine fails. The Great Circle mapper is fun for playing "what if" games with potential routes: e.g. here's the direct Seattle-Tokyo routing with dark shading showing parts where flying for 60 mins at 410 knots wouldn't reach an airport. So if that was the ETOPS performance for a Boom aircraft (and I've no idea; I just picked a B777 as an example) then the route would have pass a little closer to Alaska and Sakhalin to keep the possibility of a safe diversion at all times, and that in turn might make the route too long.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=KSEA-RJAA&MS=wls&DU=mi&E=60&EV=...

[vosper]

For those who don't know, ETOPS = "Engines Turn or Passengers Swim"

j/k, it stands for "Extended Range Twin Operations"

https://www.caa.co.uk/commercial-industry/aircraft/operation...

[asdfadsfgfdda]

Quad-engine jets are automatically ETOPS-180

https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_...

[icemelt8]

Going to North America via Dubai or Qatar is a big route industry.

[jandrese]

Fuel prices were absolutely an issue for Concorde. BA struggled immensely with the Arab oil embargo and the per-seat cost for the Concorde shot up into the stratosphere and ticket sales collapsed.

[0000011111]

We can easily model this in a sheet. Like this one: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JhvGd6iVWNweMM-PYk3z...

At todays Jet 1 A US fuel price of $3.07 per gallon it would cost $108k to fill the Concord. Which holds 120 passengers. That comes out to a cost of $900 per person passenger on a full fight.

If the cost of fuel were double like a few months ago then that cost would be $1,800 per flight.

Compared to a Boeing 737 which has a fuel cost of ~24k at max capacity of 7,878 gallons at todays prices. A passenger limit of 177 and a fuel cost as low as $136.64 per passenger on a full fight.

[Retric]

Meanwhile a one way ticket cost US$975 in 1977 or inflation adjusted about 4,700$ today. Which increased faster than inflation so by mid 90’s your talking around 6,000$ which is something like 12,000$ today.

Thus fuel while expensive wasn’t a deal killer over most of it’s history as long as they could keep most seats filled.

[notahacker]

The "as long as they could keep most seats filled" was a deal killer though.

There was enough demand for one return flight a day carrying a small proportion of the overall passengers on the immensely-popular with wealthy people JFK-LHR and JFK-CDG routes. That wasn't enough to utilise the 14 production aircraft properly, never mind enough demand for it to have been viable as an airframe programme ...

[Retric]

They both also used it for private charters which was apparently quite a profitable business. Anyway, the exclusivity was presumably more profitable than simply maximizing occupancy.

That said, boom is building a significantly smaller aircraft which should again open up more possible routes.

[bogomipz]

The Arab Oil Embargo was 1973-1974 and the Concord didn't go into commercial service until 1976. While it sounds like the oil crisis had an effect on airlines placing Concord orders it didn't overlap with the commercial service being offered to the public. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

[Retric]

The oil embargo hit the entire industry hard, but Concorde continued operation into 2003. Over time as other aircraft became more efficient the efficiency gap grew much larger but it was still profitable up to Air France Flight 4590.

[jandrese]

Concorde survived on government subsidies, especially with the R&D costs, but also the maintenance chain. It was a point of national pride for the UK and France, but also a money pit for both countries.

[mlyle]

> Concorde survived on government subsidies, especially with the R&D costs, but also the maintenance chain.

Yes, and this was mostly necessary because of the small unit counts and small number of routes, not because of fuel costs (though the latter certainly did not help.

Both could be significantly better with Boom: more routes, and lower fuel costs.

[berkut]

From what I've read, the Concordes had preferential landing treatment on westbound flights into JFK and Dulles, due to their shortage of fuel, and the controllers would often allow them to land before other planes that had been queuing for a while. (They used a separate controller radio frequency apparently for the initial request, and then switched to using the main frequency).