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I think there has been a ton of improvement in commercial flight — think safety, for example — but my understanding is that there has simply been no incentive t

I think there has been a ton of improvement in commercial flight — think safety, for example — but my understanding is that there has simply been no incentive to improve flight times. Customers aren’t willing to pay for it. Which sort of makes sense: Generally speaking flight time is less than half of the total door-to-door time of air travel.

greazy 2y ago
> Generally speaking flight time is less than half of the total door-to-door time of air travel. Maybe for domestic flights but for international flights (especially if you live in Australia) it would improve the flying experience. I've noticed a big difference on my body when flying 8hr vs 12hrs. It may not seem like a big difference but those extra 4hrs put a massive strain on your body and mind.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  If you live in New Zealand, you learn to suffer. A (dubious) upside is that you rarely circle long - after 18+ hours in the air, you're coming down.
mrcsharp 2y ago
> Customers aren’t willing to pay for it I would be more inclined to travel overseas if travel times were shorter thus making me a more frequent customer and bringing the airlines more money.
- chasing 2y ago
  Would you be willing to pay 50% more for tix per flight? I think that’s the issue. And airlines have realized that, no: By-and-large people prefer low price over saving a few hours.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    Except due to greatly reduced efficiencies it's more like 500% more.
WalterBright 2y ago
Going faster means a lot more fuel consumption. Air doesn't like being violently shoved aside. In fact, it gets all hot about it :-/
arp242 2y ago
> there has simply been no incentive to improve flight times It's more that you just run in to real limits of physics; many planes already fly at mach 0.8 to 0.9, and going faster than sound is always going to be difficult because of the sonic boom. Realistically, there just isn't that much you can do without solving that first, which is a difficult problem to solve in a practical way. And even if you do, the fuel efficiency is always going to make it much more expensive.

greazy 2y ago

> Generally speaking flight time is less than half of the total door-to-door time of air travel. Maybe for domestic flights but for international flights (especially if you live in Australia) it would improve the flying experience. I've noticed a big difference on my body when flying 8hr vs 12hrs. It may not seem like a big difference but those extra 4hrs put a massive strain on your body and mind.

lostlogin 2y ago
If you live in New Zealand, you learn to suffer. A (dubious) upside is that you rarely circle long - after 18+ hours in the air, you're coming down.

mrcsharp 2y ago

> Customers aren’t willing to pay for it I would be more inclined to travel overseas if travel times were shorter thus making me a more frequent customer and bringing the airlines more money.

chasing 2y ago
Would you be willing to pay 50% more for tix per flight? I think that’s the issue. And airlines have realized that, no: By-and-large people prefer low price over saving a few hours.
- TylerE 2y ago
  Except due to greatly reduced efficiencies it's more like 500% more.

WalterBright 2y ago

Going faster means a lot more fuel consumption. Air doesn't like being violently shoved aside. In fact, it gets all hot about it :-/

arp242 2y ago

> there has simply been no incentive to improve flight times It's more that you just run in to real limits of physics; many planes already fly at mach 0.8 to 0.9, and going faster than sound is always going to be difficult because of the sonic boom. Realistically, there just isn't that much you can do without solving that first, which is a difficult problem to solve in a practical way. And even if you do, the fuel efficiency is always going to make it much more expensive.