Trump lifts the ban on supersonic flight: What consequences could this have?

On November 26, 2003, the last British Airways Concorde in service landed at a base near Bristol, never to take off again. That marked the final supersonic commercial flight in the Western world to date. The reasons were clear: unprofitable routes, the reputational damage from a catastrophic crash three years earlier, and the rise of advanced telecommunications that drastically reduced demand for fast executive travel.

Despite all these setbacks, one factor stood out as the most devastating blow to supersonic flight: the speed restrictions over land. Due to the deafening sonic booms caused by shock waves, many countries banned aircraft from flying faster than the speed of sound over their territory. This rendered one of the Concorde’s key features useless and significantly limited the expansion of new intracontinental routes.

Now, 22 years after that turning point in aviation history, a major development has emerged: Donald Trump has signed an authorization allowing civil aviation to once again fly at supersonic speeds over the United States.

Overture: The key to supersonic flight

Many experts believe this policy shift is largely due to the progress made by Boom Supersonic and its aircraft, the Overture—a passenger jet designed to break the sound barrier while drastically reducing the noise it generates on the ground.

Still in the prototype phase, the Overture is expected to reach speeds of around 2,100 km/h (Mach 1.7), which is about 850 km/h faster than the speed of sound. Its aerodynamic design and specialized materials help minimize the noise that reaches the ground, avoiding past issues like shattered windows and public disturbances.

If you’re part of the middle or lower class without significant financial resources, the Overture likely won’t affect your travel plans much—tickets are expected to cost several thousand dollars. However, the development of this kind of technology is crucial for progress in aviation and could reopen a world that was once explored but never fully developed.

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