Fly To London From New York In 3 Hours: Flights Will Speed Up With World's Fastest Passenger Jet

A Colorado startup was one step closer toward its ambitious goal of building supersonic passenger jets capable of crossing the Atlantic in slightly more than three hours after securing $33 million in funding.

Boom Supersonic said in a Thursday blog post it has enough capital to build, test and fly a supersonic jet after its Series A round of funding. The jet, dubbed the XB-1, will be 1/3 the size of the company's Boom Jet, which will bring supersonic speeds back to the world of commercial flight. Boom jets will fly from New York to London in three hours and 15 minutes, about half the time of current commercial flights.

“This funds our first airplane, all the way through flight tests,” Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl told TechCrunch. “Now we have all the pieces we need – technology, suppliers and capital – to go out and make some history and set some speed records.”

Boom Supersonic said its passenger jet will fly at Mach 2.2, or 1,451 miles per hour, and carry 45 passengers.

While the company will not be the first to build a supersonic passenger jet, it would be the first to offer supersonic flights to passengers at reasonable — although not cheap — prices. The supersonic Concorde brought passengers across the Atlantic in three and a half hours for nearly three decades before it was put into retirement in 2003. A one-way ticket on the Concorde cost $18,500 in today's dollars; a ride on a Boom flight will cost just $2,500.

“We’re benefiting from 50 years of progress in fundamental aerospace technology,” Scholl told the Los Angeles Times last month. “Since the Concorde was developed, the amount of international business and international travel has skyrocketed. You can find a huge market.”

Virgin Galactic is a partner and will receive the first order of jets. Scholl told TechCrunch the company will announce new customers later this year.