[_petronius]

Equating speed of travel with innovation is lame: a lot of work has been done in recent decades on making airplane engines more efficient, which makes air travel more economical both in terms of cost as well as C02e emissions per passenger (the Jevons paradox implications of that can be taken as read).

The whole post comes off a bit as someone who doesn't really understand the passenger air travel industry very well, and isn't particularly interested in changing that.

[notahacker]

tbf whilst the lower cost travel we've got accurately represents what the market wants, it isn't exactly unusual to find industry insiders that want flight to be faster (they're just a little less likely to gush about how startups are "cleverly" working with regulators or describe Douglas as the last successful US airframer...)

[projektfu]

One could say Douglas is the only successful US commercial airline manufacturer. (Last remaining, after Boeing bought MD but inherited MD's culture)