Originally Posted by
invisible
No, seriously, just a thought experiment - do you think if there would be a technology cutting half of fuel price at the expense of increasing travel time by the same amount - will it have market opportunity?
Imagine that SFO-JFK flight would take 10h but twice less fuel.
In many ways, this is already the case. Except for cutting by half..they have cut times and sacrificed speed for capacity and efficiency. The 727 was FAST. It was great at shortening times between cities..but it was fuel hungry and didn't seat that many people. That simply isn't profitable. If it were, we would all by flying in next gen Concordes today.
Profitability isn't really in speed so much as it is in butts in seats. Nowadays we have horrors like the 757 which jams people in like sardines and increase seat capacity in it's length.