Senate Shouldn’t Help Resurrect Super-polluting Supersonic Planes
Supersonic airliners should stay in the graveyard of bad ideas
The impatient and overprivileged may soon be able to enjoy croissants for breakfast in Paris and jet to New York in time for a power lunch. That’s because aviation startups are quietly working to bring back supersonic planes — high-flying gas-guzzlers that swap fuel efficiency for speed.
A comeback of supersonic aircraft, which haven’t flown commercially since 2003, would be a giant leap backward that would take the industry’s climate harms to new heights.
Unfortunately, legislation recently introduced in the U.S. Senate would help this toxic travel method get ready for takeoff. An amendment in the 2018 Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act would reverse a long-standing ban on supersonic flight over U.S. soil. That’s why 38 environmental, public health and community groups sent a letter this week urging senators to oppose the bill.
Aviation is already among the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas pollution. It’s projected to eat up more than 4 percent of the world’s remaining carbon budget by 2050.
A recent study released by the International Council on Clean Transportation crunched the numbers. Emerging supersonic airliners, like a 55-seat plane in development by Richard Branson-backed Boom Supersonics, would likely burn five to seven times more fuel than a comparable subsonic plane.
Boom’s airliner, which supposedly will be in-service by 2023, is targeted at the very rich. Offering only first- and business-class seats, the company says it can cut travel times by more than half for transatlantic flights and a little less than half for transpacific flights.
Private supersonic jets catering to billionaires are also in the works to launch in the mid-2020s. With fewer than 18 seats, these planes will be even more wasteful.
Because they burn through fossil fuels at a higher rate, supersonic planes also emit more toxic air pollutants like nitrogen oxides, especially during take-off and landing. This is a serious health risk for communities near airports, whose residents are disproportionately low-income and people of color.
While the wealthy zip around the world, these disadvantaged communities would be stuck breathing the dirty air the planes leave behind.
And supersonic aircraft aren’t just polluting. They’re noisy.
When an aircraft surpasses the speed of sound, it slams into the air. The resulting shockwaves create a window-shaking, thunderous boom. These “sonic booms” can startle humans and wildlife on the ground. The boom isn’t just heard once when the sound barrier breaks — it’s a roar that continues along the entire supersonic flight route, affecting anyone in the flightpath.
For that reason, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has forbidden non-military supersonic flight over land in the U.S. since 1973. That means that the new supersonic airliners and private jets are limited to transoceanic routes.
But now aviation startups are lobbying lawmakers to undo that restriction, claiming that new technology can “reduce the sound of a sonic boom to a sonic thump.” Whatever a “thump” actually sounds like, there’s no evidence these aircraft are achieving any such reduction.
If the 2018 Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act is passed as written, the startups will get their wish.
This bill spells disaster for our health and environment. Expanding the routes these super-polluters can fly will burn more fossil fuels and expose more people and wildlife to air and noise pollution.
And it would incentivize the development of more fossil-fuel guzzling aircraft at a time when the aviation industry should be laser-focused on reducing, not intensifying, its climate harms.
There’s simply no good reason to try to raise supersonic aircraft from the graveyard of bad ideas. The last commercial supersonic plane, the Concorde, went under in the early 2000s for a reason.
These aircraft are a gratuitous and environmentally destructive convenience for the champagne and caviar crowd. Our senators should protect our planet — and our children’s future — from these polluting planes.
