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You can currently pay $5000 more per return ticket (if you shop around) to do it business class. Full lie-flat bed, decent service, leg room, seatback power. Yo
by cstross 12y ago
You can currently pay $5000 more per return ticket (if you shop around) to do it business class. Full lie-flat bed, decent service, leg room, seatback power. You arrive feeling reasonably fresh (modulo the jet lag) and you can work en-route. That's the competition, and it'll be upgraded to compete if a hypersonic option ever comes on the market within an order of magnitude of its price -- think in terms of the first class cabins and bathrooms with showers that Emirates already put on their A380s, then upgrade it to a compact en suite hotel room with in-flight internet.
- notahacker 12y agoThis. The maximum possible time saving looks even less significant when considering that since the physics and maintenance requirements for transporting people in turbofan-engined aluminium tubes at 1000km/h at 30,000ft is pretty well understood after half a century, the A380 will have better dispatch reliability and be substantially less likely to send your VIPs to a fiery death.