NASA says it will build quiet supersonic passenger jet

Quote: Nareed

The other thing we've seen is the rise of alternate airports.

Urban planners were very excited about the idea of alternate airports about 15 years ago. But many have not panned out the way that people hoped. Ontario, John Wayne, Burbank and Long Beach in Los Angeles, Tenafly and Islip in New York City, have never really developed. Same for Toluca in Mexico.

Seattle is going great guns as an alternative to SFO and JFK for international flights to Asia.
Denver only has one flight to Tokyo vs four European routes (British Airways:London–Heathrow; Icelandair:Reykjavík–Keflavík; Lufthansa:Frankfurt & Munich)

But by and large the long haul international flights want to go to the primary mega hubs.

Quote: Pacomartin

Urban planners were very excited about the idea of alternate airports about 15 years ago. But many have not panned out the way that people hoped. Ontario, John Wayne, Burbank and Long Beach in Los Angeles, Tenafly and Islip in New York City, have never really developed. Same for Toluca in Mexico.

Again "yes, but."

Love Field in Dallas is working out rather well, as is Hobby in Houston. But, ok, that's entirely due to Southwest. Volaris is making use of Orange County for Los Angeles and Oakland for SF.

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But by and large the long haul international flights want to go to the primary mega hubs.

Sure, but these also involve wide bodies (can you get from Denver to Iceland on a 757? it seems dubious). The airlines clinging with a death grip to the narrow bodies are using some alternates at big destinations.

Quote: Nareed

Sure, but these also involve wide bodies (can you get from Denver to Iceland on a 757? it seems dubious).

Sure you can. Icelandair uses the 757 as their long distance airplane.
Icelandair longest flight is Keflavík to Seattle on a Boeing 757-200, which is about 60 miles longer than flying Keflavík to Denver.

Iceland is a tiny country of about 1/3 million people. They can't afford new widebodies. The do have two 15-17 year old B767's so there are minor league widebodies, but Icelandair is the biggest non USA operator of the B757 having twice as many 757s than Thomson Airways Limited (world's largest charter airline) .

Quote: Pacomartin

Sure you can. Icelandair uses the 757 as their long distance airplane.

They should be arrested or whipped or something....

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Iceland is a tiny country of about 1/3 million people. They can't afford new widebodies. The do have two 15-17 year old B767's so there are minor league widebodies,

Ok. And operating the 757 on long flights, they can afford to keep them in the air longer. But eventually they'll need to be replaced. What happens then? Either they go wide body, or order a long range variant of the A320/1 or the 737 MAX.

Quote: Pacomartin

They have the following 16 airplanes on order.

Either I'm beginning to develop a feel for the aviation business, or I get lucky sometimes :)

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But many people feel that airlines are going to push the B757's until they are 30 years old.

This makes me question the wisdom of neither of the majors developing a 757 replacement.

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Delta is flying a Boeing 757-200 from Brasília to Atlanta (6711 km)

I get a touch of claustrophobia just reading that sentence.

My longest ever flight in a narrow body was MEX-LAS at around 3:45 hours. I wouldn't care to do a longer one, even if I could afford a business or first class seat. You can only remain seated in one place for so long before you begin to feel sick of it. Perhaps on a nice flat bed if I could sleep through it.

Quote: Nareed

This makes me question the wisdom of neither of the majors developing a 757 replacement.

Longest flight today
11,830 km Boeing 787-8 Dallas/Fort Worth to Shanghai-Pudong on American Airlines | Seats:28 Bus. 141 Eco.+ 57 Main Cabin Extra
6,711 km Boeing 757-200 Brasília to Atlanta on Delta Air Lines | Seats:16 Delta One +130 Economy +25 Delta Comfort
5,404 km Boeing 737-900ER Istanbul-Atatürk to Dar es Salaam on Turkish Airlines | Seats:16 Business 135 Economy
5,135 km Airbus A321-200 Tromsø to Gran Canaria on Thomas Cook Scandinavia | Seats: 212 Economy

The so-called Middle Market inhabited by 757 is not being replaced.

Airbus is marketing a long-range version of its upcoming A321neo. It's about 10 seats smaller than the 757-200, but will have roughly similar range. Airbus claims that the long-range version of its A321neo will consume 30% less fuel than a 757.

But critics point out the A321 neo is a replacement for the A321. The long range version is adding fuel tanks to the plane nearly the capabilities of the 757 that went into service in 1983. A true replacement would be to start with 757 capabilities and improve that with newest engines, and materials. You might expect a replacement to be flying 8000-9000 km.

The standard argument against replacing the 757-200 is that there were only 1050 B757's delivered, and that is too few to develop another model. Why go through all that trouble to simply steal from Dreamliner sales?Besides if the replacement isn't cheap enough, the airlines will simply buy up to Dreamliners or accept the range limitations of the 737 Max. It's too risky with too little potential gain.

In any case, Boeing is not likely to make a decision for the next four years. They will be involved with the B737-Max and B777 Max until then.

Quote: Pacomartin

Urban planners were very excited about the idea of alternate airports about 15 years ago. But many have not panned out the way that people hoped. Ontario, John Wayne, Burbank and Long Beach in Los Angeles, Tenafly and Islip in New York City, have never really developed. Same for Toluca in Mexico.

I don't know that they are supposed to, the whole idea of them is to avoid the mega-airports. I've flown into Islip and saw my boss pulling up to the curb to pick me up as I got my luggage. I got lucky at JFK because my ride had a service parking pass that allowed him to park in a loading zone since we serviced the place. Islip was still nicer, it was just that JBLU did not exist so the plane itself was awful. If the place was many times the size the benefit would be gone, namely that if you are going to Long Island you save a ton of driving time.

I imagine the same holds for the LA secondary airports.

Quote: Pacomartin

But critics point out the A321 neo is a replacement for the A321. The long range version is adding fuel tanks to the plane nearly the capabilities of the 757 that went into service in 1983. A true replacement would be to start with 757 capabilities and improve that with newest engines, and materials. You might expect a replacement to be flying 8000-9000 km.

Yes! A replacement is actually a follow-on model.

As I recall, the 757 didn't have a stellar sales record. But those that were sold have been getting some real hard use.

Quote: AZDuffman

I imagine the same holds for the LA secondary airports.

They are wonderful. For a while United was flying cross country from IAD Washington Dulles to John Wayne, Orange county airport. LAX has 7.5 times the passenger load as Orange county;although they are only 36 air miles apart, Orange County was about an hour closer to our job.

You just walk over and get your rental car at John Wayne and the whole thing is very painless. But my colleague said it won't last. Within a few months the flight was cancelled. United still serves Orange County to Newark (the airport's sole flight to the Eastern Time Zone).

But urban planners were at one time hoping that secondary planners would take care of some of the growth and take the pressure off major aiports. That has happened, largely because it is harder for the airlines to make a profit.

Quote: Pacomartin

They are wonderful. For a while United was flying cross country from IAD Washington Dulles to John Wayne, Orange county airport. LAX has 7.5 times the passenger load as Orange county; Although they are only 36 air miles apart, Orange County was about an hour closer to our job.

You just walk over and get your rental car at John Wayne and the whole thing is very painless. But my colleague said it won't last. Within a few months the flight was cancelled. United still serves Orange County to Newark (the airport's sole flight to the Eastern Time Zone).

But urban planners were at one time hoping that secondary planners would take care of some of the growth and take the pressure off major aiports. That has happened, largely because it is harder for the airlines to make a profit.

Orange County had a great future as a reliever airport, but noise abatement has been a real joy-killer for the airlines there. They had for many years (and still may have - I retired) the most restrictive and dangerous procedures in the country, as well as only allowing certain airframes to fly there in the first place, and restricting hours of operation for noise, along with reportedly high landing fees compared to other options. But depending on the runway in use, they had to cut power immediately after takeoff and/or make sharp climbing turns to avoid various mansions and geographical features, and the pilots found many things unsafe over the years. It's too bad, really; as Paco said, it was very convenient for many people compared to LAX or even BUR in terms of traffic in the basin.

Last I saw (5 years ago) Alaska AirLInes was still offering flights to Hawaii out of there, but I'm just not current any more.