“Jet airliners became 70% more fuel efficient between 1967 and 2007, 40% due to improvements in engine efficiency and 30% from airframes. Efficiency gains were larger early in the jet age than later, with a 55-67% gain from 1960 to 1980 and a 20-26% gain from 1980 to 2000. Average fuel burn of new aircraft fell 45% from 1968 to 2014, a compounded annual reduction 1.3% with variable reduction rate.”
Supersonic is different, but there was half a century of development in military supersonic flight, so a new design need not start where Concorde stopped.
While true, the catch is that very little technology relevant to civilian supersonic flight has changed since Concorde. We have composite fuselages and that’s about it. Concorde was close to optimal within the design constraints it was built for and those constraints haven’t really changed - airport parking docks remain the same size, runways are the same length, London and NYC are still the same distance apart, people don’t want to hear sonic booms, and few are able to shell out $$$$ it takes to pay for all the fuel. I have huge respect to Boom for giving this a go but it will be incredibly hard for an aircraft manufacturer to turn a profit.
I would think that is not very hard to accomplish. Their first flight is almost half a century after Concorde’s. Technology has progressed.
As an (imperfect) comparison, in subsonic flight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Past):
“Jet airliners became 70% more fuel efficient between 1967 and 2007, 40% due to improvements in engine efficiency and 30% from airframes. Efficiency gains were larger early in the jet age than later, with a 55-67% gain from 1960 to 1980 and a 20-26% gain from 1980 to 2000. Average fuel burn of new aircraft fell 45% from 1968 to 2014, a compounded annual reduction 1.3% with variable reduction rate.”
Supersonic is different, but there was half a century of development in military supersonic flight, so a new design need not start where Concorde stopped.