This is Why Planes Don’t Fly Faster

This video, brought to us by Wendover Productions’ YouTube channel, sheds some light on why air travel hasn’t really sped up in the past half-century, and the reasons are actually exactly what you would think if you understand the concept of efficiency at all.

For the past 50 years, there have been incredible advances in technology on all fronts, yet air travel, surprisingly, has slowed down in that time. It takes longer to fly anywhere than it did to make the same trip in the 60’s. The reason for that isn’t that the planes fly slower, it’s due to congestion and delays. The actual time spent in the air is the same, the delays come from waiting on the tarmac before and after the flight.

Why not speed up the planes in the air to offset the congestion? That’s where efficiency comes into play. Most commercial airliners fly at Mach 0.8 or so, even thought they have more than enough power to fly well above the speed of sound. The issue that comes into play is how much more fuel is required to fly above Mach 0.8 and the stressed caused when a plane exceeds the speed of sound. So instead, airlines focus on using engines that get the best fuel economy right around that Mach 0.8 number, which means almost anywhere on the globe is accessible within 24 hours without ticket costs soaring.