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Breaking the airliner paradigm

From a commercial airline perspective, 2 things will dictate the future: 1. Regulations, noise + emissions. 2. Operating costs per passenger per mile/km (depending on preference). The airline operators couldn't give a monkeys if the plane is quiet. Pretty or the latest technology helps a little bit with marketing, but not much. What they care about is their operating costs, fuel, maintenance and turn around time. I.e. Profit, as a business should. As long as they are within regulation and buying a new plane will not make any difference on the returns, nothing will change. We will see a new generation of small supersonic business jets for the super-rich. I love the idea of Hypersonic transport, but unless the costs are comparable you will minimal uptake, as the companies are interested in money, not passenger velocity. Ekranoplan's are limited by the fact they can only operate over water or frozen water. I love the idea of having Thunderbird 2 style removable passenger/cargo containers, this would help with turnaround time. The main issue with this is that the operating company would need to have 2 containers with one being stored at the airport for the next flight, this storage will have an associated cost. There would also be a need to pre-load 'pods' at an airport to allow this process to begin. The planes would be heavier to accommodate this, increasing fuel consumption. While a noble idea, I would expect that the costs outweigh the benefits. The most likely are the 'Zepplin' cargo carriers and would probably replace cargo ships over time if the operating costs are lower.

2 Jul 2012

11:09 am