- [Narrator] United Airlines

wants to bring back supersonic air travel

with a new aircraft. (bass thumping)

The airline says it plans to buy 15 Overture jets

from the start-up aerospace company Boom Supersonic.

Boom hopes to fly a scaled-down prototype later this year,

or early in 2022,

with the full size 88 seat version

targeted to carry passengers by 2029.

So what does this mean for the future of supersonic travel?

Is this acquisition a turning point,

or should the markets be more skeptical?

- United's announcement isn't a game changer

for supersonic travel.

We've had pretend orders, almost real orders before.

The proof is when United actually spends money.

- [Narrator] But Boom CEO Blake Scholl

disputed that critique.

In an email to the "Journal," he wrote,

"United has agreed to purchase 15 Overture aircraft

on industry standard terms,

including nonrefundable upfront payments."

In a statement to the "Wall Street Journal,"

United said, "While we cannot disclose

the financial details,

we can confirm that we have made a deposit

which signals our confidence in Boom

as well as the aircraft they are building."

Over the past decade, several startups,

the most prominent of which include Boom, Aerion, and Spike,

have been working to develop

the next generation of commercial supersonic jets.

But creating a new plane that can travel

faster than the speed of sound and do it safely

is not easy or cheap.

- Really, this is just a question of funding.

It's probably gonna cost well over $20 billion

to develop a supersonic jet, to say nothing

of the cost of actually building it and buying it.

- [Narrator] Last month, Aerion,

which is backed by Boeing,

folded after was unable to raise enough money

to produce a planned supersonic business jet.

(upbeat music)

The British French airliner Concorde

was one of only two supersonic jets

to have operated commercially,

but it failed as a business

because of its high ticket prices

and a 2000 crash in Paris

that left 113 people dead.

A 3 1/2 hour Concorde flight between New York and London

cost as much as $10,000 in the year 2000.

Although United has not said

how much tickets on its supersonic jets

would eventually cost,

they would likely be more expensive than a typical flight.

But who is the target market?

- There are really two very distinct markets.

The corporate market, the business jet market,

typically has very low elasticity.

They don't really care how much they pay for travel,

whereas a scheduled air transport, the jetliner business,

the airliner business, they are typically used

thousands of hours per year.

Obviously that market is a bit more sensitive to price.

(soft intense music)

- [Narrator] Today, business travelers have come to expect

a certain level of luxury on their subsonic flights.

Given the smaller size of the supersonic planes,

that same experience may be hard to duplicate.

But United isn't concerned about demand.

The airline said it believes there will be ample appetite

for supersonic trips from business travelers

concentrated in United's coastal hubs.

United told the "Journal,"

"Boom is designing Overture to be profitable

at fares comparable to today's subsonic business class,

thanks in large part to a 75% reduction in operating costs

relative to Concorde."

Technological hurdles have hampered development.

- There was a reason Concorde had 100 seats.

If they could have made it bigger with the materials

available at that time and the engines available

at that time, they would have,

which would have made

the aircraft potentially more economic.

So designers now have new materials, new engines,

but they still face that basic physics,

which is why the shapes are very similar

between these new designs and Concorde.

- [Narrator] Perhaps the biggest technological problem

is reducing the Sonic boom

that is made when these supersonic jets

break the sound barrier.

- NASA has kind of led the research in the US,

and has a test program going on right now.

And what their researchers say that the modeling shows,

instead of a boom that can break windows,

it will be become what they call a soft thump

is all that you would hear on the ground.

- [Narrator] For now, experts are skeptical

about the economic viability of supersonic travel.

- Basically, I think Boom is feeling a bit under the gun

because of Aerion's collapse the previous week,

and they wanted to have something to take to investors

and say, hey, there's commercial activity here.

- [Narrator] Boom CEO Blake Scholl said

that "Aerion's demise came as a surprise to the industry

just a few weeks ago.

We couldn't possibly conclude a transaction

in that period of time."

- Little or no money has changed hands.

So United has certainly scored a big publicity coup.

Whether it's advanced the technology remains to be seen.

I guess that the big help might be

that Boom the aircraft maker might find it easier

to get the kind of finance that its rivals

have found it tough to find.

(soft music)