China is looking to dominate in supersonic air travel as it pushes through on Ctrip's investment deal with US-based flight start-up company, Boom.
As of today, there are only three average flights per day made on all airports between Shanghai, China to New York City, USA. But this flight time could soon be cut in half.
Ctrip.com International, China's leading travel company based off in Shanghai, is pouring down "an undisclosed sum" in a very ambitious project to revive hyperspeed air travel.
The project in question is being spearheaded by Boom, a Denver-based start-firm. The company has plans to manufacture a 55-seater supersonic jet that could travel at a break-necking speed of Mac 2.2 which is approximately twice the speed of sound.
Air France and British Airways were the first to make supersonic jet travel available to the public. However, the project didn't fly that far when issues of high maintenance costs threaten the whole business model.
There's also the matter of safety. Air France Concorde was once hit by a tragic incident when one of its Concorde jets crashed minutes after it took off from Paris. There were 109 people killed on that flight.
These factors severely affected the two airline companies that after merely three decades of its commercial use, they are forced to retire the Concorde flight.
Boom will take things differently this time. According to them, they are now looking to utilize new materials which promise a quieter, more efficient flight.
If it comes to fruition, long and tiring plane travels will soon be a thing of the past.
Blake Scholl, the founder, and CEO of Boom revealed in an interview that with the new supersonic flight, the 11-hour flight time between Shanghai and San Francisco could now shrink to 6 hours. The travel from Los Angeles and back to the mainland is currently clocked in at about 12 hours. This too will be cut in half with Boom's airline.
"...the benefits of faster travel extend far beyond the time savings," Scholl added. "When we fly twice as fast, the world becomes twice as small, turning far off lands into familiar neighbors."
Ctrip's role in making this dream into a reality is its "unrivaled expertise in the business-travel market."
According to James Liang, Ctrip's co-founder and CEO, Ctrip's deal with Boom is a "strategic investment in the next generation of travel."
"...Ctrip's unrivaled expertise in the business-travel market will help Boom to further deepen its relationships with Chinese airlines," Liang added.
