In new era of supersonic travel, a Singapore-London flight could take just five hours

[LONDON] Imagine boarding a flight in Singapore and arriving in London in a little over five hours, instead of the 12 to 13 hours it takes currently to complete the journey of well over 10,000 km.

It may seem incredulous to many, but for US airplane manufacturer Boom Supersonic, it is a reality that’s perhaps not too far away. The Colorado-based company insists its latest supersonic airliner, called Overture, can reach a speed of Mach 1.7 – that’s 1.7 times the speed of sound, or 1,800 kmh.

At the Paris Air Show in June, Boom revealed that there are as many as 130 such planes on order from the likes of American Airlines, United Airlines and Japan Airlines, with the aim to deliver them by 2029.