Last month, the Airbus invited the press to get an insight into the new ideas the manufacturer is developing for future aircraft types. All of them are brilliant, but the most surprising aspect was that none of them seemed to deal with increasing the cruise speed of aircraft.
Manufacturers are focusing their efforts on saving fuel, and they all proudly claim a fuel save improvement against their competitors. There has been a huge improvement in this in the past 50 years. The fuel consumption of aircraft has decreased dramatically, but the cruise speed of a Comet 4 (one of the first production jet airliners, in the 1950s) was mach 0.78, the same as the current generation of aircraft.
The new generation promises about 15% of fuel savings compared with current models. So, assuming that carriers spend, on average, 30% on fuel, the potential savings for a carrier are 5.25% (0.35 times 0.15).
However, the impact of the aircraft on the operating costs of a carrier is about 15%, and the extra cost of the new-generation aircraft should be deducted: about 10% more according to list prices; either leased or financed, which means that they are going to see their costs increased by 1.5%.
The new generation of aircraft should give carriers savings of 3.75% of total costs.
Flying next-generation aircraft is profitable. The savings in fuel justify the price increase, so why don't they consider a 180-seat turboprop? They burn less fuel, and for short distances the speed is not a big concern. The answer is obvious: it is a step back in terms of technology. Most passengers associate propellers with a lack of safety, and airlines would struggle to sell tickets.
The economical advantages of super fast aircraft are solid for long routes - a notable increase in available seat kilometres with the same fleet, fewer crew and lower inflight costs. The traditional concern about speed is that it is not fuel efficient, but the latest technology in supersonic airliners is from more than 30 years ago.
The record for a transatlantic flight from New York to London is just under two hours, and it was achieved in 1974. We should not forget that this happened before the massive application of the microchip, so the technology available nowadays is completely different.
A flight from London to New York takes about eight hours on a normal jet, adding about two hours for each cycle (landing, taking off, on-ground operations, etc), meaning that each flight takes about 10 hours on average. Developing an aircraft capable of doing the same trip in half the time means the cycle could be made in about six hours, 40% less. It is clear that the longer the route, the bigger the savings, so it would make sense for routes of more than five or six hours.
Carriers spend, on average, about 15% on aircraft and 10% on crew. Cutting the duration of the flight by two and burning the same fuel per mile, the savings would increase by up to 10%, which is more than 5.25% of fuel savings.
The main advantage is, however, that carriers cannot justify a dramatic increase in fares just because they are flying on a more fuel-efficient aircraft, whereas there is a reason for increasing the speed - people will pay more. It happened in Europe with highspeed train services - not only do passengers pay more, but also in some cases the new rolling stock completely replaces the traditional train service.
Tickets for long distances are often more expensive per mile than for short distances, and customers assume that they have to pay more for them - business travellers would demand this service.
The big question is: would you pay more to travel faster?
At times, it is perplexing, but pleasantly so, that as technology advances and becomes more complex, prices drop. The same can be said, in the aviations industry. Companies such as Laversab Aviation Systems are on churning out cutting-edge technology in the aviations systems industry. Their Pitot Static test equipment is incredibly sophisticated - placing in the top echelon of their respective marketplace as a leading supplier of: air data testers, pitot static testers, and RVSM test sets. Laversab Aviation is continually pushing the boundaries. The innovations are not stopping. Their ingenuity and gumption is helping the aeronautics and aviation world become even more and more sophisticated.
