Is there still a realistic need for commercial supersonic flight, even in business aviation?

We live in an era of high-speed communication, video conferences, and fast data transfers, a digital era that shrinks distances and renders trips useless. Under certain circumstances traveling is still required, but does speed matter?    

It is said that the need creates the tool. How big is this need today? Let's take a look at, I am tempted to write a few examples below, but in fact there are only two, or one and a half, depending on the approach. I'll mention only the most famous one.

The Concorde. The Concorde was affordable for only a few privileged ones. As a result, the aircraft wasn't built in great numbers, and the numbers seem to confirm a limited need for speed. Only twenty Concordes were ever built.

It was a great feat of engineering, indeed, a big technical leap, but it also boosted the public's understanding of conflicts between technology and the environment and awareness of the complex decision-making processes surrounding such conflicts. Conflicts are spawned from issues, and sonic booms are a big issue in today’s overpopulated areas—and not the only one.

The Concorde's supersonic regime was limited to above the ocean, a restriction necessitated by the sonic booms it produced. This raises the question: for future supersonic flights, will we need to develop routes over unpopulated areas, such as the Arctic, deserts, or Amazonian jungles? The environmental impact of such decisions is a concern we cannot ignore. The American SST project was canceled due to noise and environmental concerns.

There is also the depressurization issue. It is difficult to drift down from almost outer space. Are paying passengers willing to wear pressurized suits just to fly higher and faster? I don't think so.

Paradoxically, in a world that moves at an increasingly rapid pace, comfort, safety, and costs seem more important than speed. Orthodox aircraft, such as long-haul business jets, are highly wanted. Bombardier sold its 200th example of its Global 7500 model in September 2024. Gulfstream developed its 700 and 800 series, which are in the same class. Dassault is working on its 10X. Cessna Longitude still sells strong.    

Where are the supersonic designs during this time?

Despite their futuristic few-letter names, most modern supersonic programs were either shut down due to lack of funding or are still under long-term research. In other words , they are attempts only—expensive attempts.

Let's summarize some of them.

Jaxa's SST – a scaled-down prototype flew in 2006. Nothing new since.

Aerion's SBJ and AS2 – both projects shut down due to not being able to raise any funds,

The QSST - a project by Supersonic Aerospace International – was abandoned. Lack of funding.

Gulfstream – research only.

Lockheed Martin X-59 Quesst – under development. No prototype was built.

The Boom XB-1 "Baby Boom" - a one-third-scale trijet supersonic demonstrator—is the only civilian supersonic aircraft flying today. Currently, it is more of a military single-pilot jet than a useful civilian airliner.

Spike S-512 – stalled? No news?

Exosonic – shut down in 2024. Lack of funding.

The hypersonic projects are not too good, either. There was some progress since Boeing's X-20 Dyna Star in the sixties, but apart from military missiles, nothing really materialized.

The Zero Emission Hyper Sonic Transport or ZEHST –  Concept. Planned for 2050.

Space Liner – Another concept.

Lapcat – concept/research program

A special category is suborbital flight. In my opinion, this would be the future for ultrafast transportation. Military missiles, in the form of ICBMs, have been around for decades. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic offers space flights as a form of suborbital tourism, but only a few have taken place at around half a million USD per passenger. Their VSS Enterprise space plane crashed during testing, but the program is ongoing.

Let's talk numbers now.

Depending on the type, an orthodox jet requires around one million USD per year in management taxes, maintenance, and flight hour costs. If it is an old model, it may cost more. Some of the money is recoverable if the aircraft is part of a charter fleet.

A business jet's value drops abruptly during the first five years after it rolls out the factory gate. This is not because the aircraft is not airworthy, but because its market value is dictated more by vanity than practicality, the same way an iPhone loses its value because a new model just hit the market.

Considering the above and the ‘vanity value’ a business jet has, is there a market in the future for supersonic concepts? It looks like there is enough to convince the few companies mentioned above to invest significantly in developing such concepts, but given the current circumstances, we can assume that a super or hypersonic commercial aircraft is more of a one-off special mission engineering feat.

Conclusions? They may have a future, rather than being projects of the past, but a very, very expensive and uncertain future.