Fly supersonic between London and New York for £4,000 return?
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
That's the plan from Blake Scholl, CEO and founder of Denver-based Boom Supersonic. In part 3 of supersonic week, he has been telling me about the pricing for his Overture aircraft – and who will be on board. First though, what was wrong about Concorde?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Wednesday the 14th of January, day three of Super Sonic Week, in which I consider whether passengers will ever be flying again at speeds faster than sound. |
| 0:19.8 | I've been talking to Blake Scholl. He is the founder and chief executive |
| 0:24.7 | of Boom Supersonic, whose overture aircraft is hoping to be flying by the end of the decade. |
| 0:33.1 | Today, he tells me how the fairs are going to work and who is going to be on board. |
| 0:40.7 | Oh, and where Concord went wrong. |
| 0:42.9 | I have this very ambivalent opinion about Concord because the technology was incredible, the vision was incredible, the engineering was incredible, what was done with slide rolls and drafting |
| 0:55.5 | paper and military engines in the 1960s is just absolutely inspiring. And yet the way the project |
| 1:01.9 | goals were set and what the airplane actually was frankly a disaster. And so I have with great |
| 1:07.3 | respect for Concord, but also was not the airplane we should have built. Why is Overture 60 seats? |
| 1:12.9 | Because that's how many first class passengers there actually are. |
| 1:16.4 | Concord was too big and too uncomfortable. |
| 1:18.9 | Right technology, wrong product. |
| 1:20.9 | Overture is, I think, the proper successor to Concord, and it's got latest generation technology. |
| 1:26.9 | It's made out of carbon fiber composites. |
| 1:28.9 | It's got our symphony engines that are fuel efficient and quiet. And it's got a much more spacious |
| 1:33.7 | cabin than Concord did. The seats are much larger and more comfortable. It's going to be a really |
| 1:39.1 | wonderful interior. The one thing that Concord had that we don't have is an ashtray. So we've taken that off. |
| 1:45.2 | But most important is affordability. Concord was 20,000 quit. And for most of us, that's a bucket |
| 1:51.9 | list item. It's not routine transportation. So that was really for royalty and for rock stars. |
| 1:56.2 | And we ultimately want to do supersonic flight for the rest of us. So with Overture version one, we're going to be able to do this at a fair like people |
| 2:04.8 | play in first your business today. |
| 2:06.6 | So think 5,000 US round trip across the Atlantic. |
... |
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