Blake Scholl

They have to change their business model to compete.

Let me explain why that is.

A typical international airliner today, a wide body, the twin aisles, let's say they got 200 or 300 seats on them.

About 20% of the seats at the front of the airplane are business and first class.

Those seats represent roughly 80% of the profits.

All the money is in the front part of the airplane.

Supersonic, with the technology that we have right now, we can't build a supersonic jumbo jet, 300 seat supersonic jet, that can support economy fares.

We only have the technology right now, this will change, but right now today, we only have the technology to do it for about a business class fare.

Okay, if you take the business class seats out of a Boeing or Airbus airplane and put it in another airplane, the big airplane just lost 80% of its value.

So in order to build the supersonic future, you have to be willing to disrupt the subsonic wide body.

And that's not something that big companies are generally willing to do.

It's roughly 80% in the front 20% of seats, rough numbers.

This is why if you fly business class, you've got this outstanding wine list and you've got these fancy lounges and all these other perks.

Why?

Because that's where all the money is.

On a per flight basis, very route to route, market to market, but roughly 80% on a per flight basis.

And if you look at it on a per customer basis, it's even more significant because the people who fly long haul international and premium class fly

are almost all the profit for international airlines.

Again, that's why you see all those perks and why you get all the status and if you're global services, you get on first.

And so if you move that into a separate airplane, you have to rethink a bit of the economics.