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Would you pay $5k to fly basic economy?

Air travel is popular, but extremely price sensitive. Ryanair and its ilk have shown that people will suffer humiliation to save even $50 on ticket prices.

Supersonic will have to serve the rich, who are willing to pay to fly private. But how big is that market? Especially if you’re still going to raise prices 2-3x?




Some passengers are extremely price sensitive, but full-service airlines make 80% of their profits from the 10% sitting up in the pointy end. It already costs 4x more to fly biz than economy, and 9-11x more to fly first (actual first class, not US domestic).


There are thousands of business and first class seats sold between London and New York every day, most in the 5k plus per leg range.


Would they pay that much to fly economy, for a flight half as long? I'm skeptical. (Comparable first-class tickets would be $20k - $50k.)




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