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THE INVESTOR
IN YOUR INTEREST
A
ir travel looks to be a
market that is ripe for
disruption. Since the
1960s the number of
passengers has risen dramatically, but
for the individual traveller there has
been little change to the flying
experience or journey time. In-flight
comfort may have leapt forward –
there are lie-flat seats for the well-
heeled – but since supersonic
Concorde was retired in 2003, jet
airliners travel at much the same
speed now as they did 50 years ago –
even for the uber-rich. Designs of
cabin interiors are lacklustre and
no-frills airlines have killed any
lingering romance.
Yet despite this, a highly
conservative industry, watched over
by even more prudent regulators, has
achieved a miracle of sorts.Today,
nearly ten million people take to the
skies in a commercial airliner every
day
1
. Flights are comparatively cheap
(both when looking at flight prices
from the 1960s and other modern
forms of transport over the same
distance) and the safety record is
phenomenal with just 0.07 deaths per
one billion passenger miles (in the US)
2
.
The lack of pizzazz is due, in large
part, to the two dominant airliner
manufacturers: Airbus and Boeing. It
isn’t that they refuse to take business
risks on projects. Airbus, for example,
has gambled billions on the double-
decker A380
3
, for which orders are
down to a trickle. But both have been
gradualists, improving at the margins
rather than doing anything to set the
traveller’s pulse racing.
BLUE-SKYTHINKING
The aviation industry is revisiting mainstream supersonic travel
and even developing ying cars.Will the new technology take
o ,or will regulators ground these bold ambitions?
ByVictor Smart
10
million
people fly in
commercial
airliners
every day
1
0.07
deaths
per 1 billion
passenger
miles in the US
2