Speed, safety, sustainability: Boom’s three core principles

Boom began as a vision to make the world dramatically more accessible. Inspired by Concorde’s technology and the human connection enabled by faster flight, the company set out to build a new era of supersonic travel.

Early in Boom’s foundation, the leaders recognized that certain elements of supersonic travel would need to be fundamentally different from Concorde’s in order to thrive. “Concorde was a technological marvel of its time, but economically and environmentally unsustainable,” said Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl. “It was too expensive to turn a profit and reach economies of scale; its noise pollution made it unwelcome at most airports.”

Learning from Concorde and building upon its foundation, Scholl and his team defined three core principles to guide every strategic decision and facet of the organization — speed, safety, and sustainability.

When asked what these principles meant for the company, Scholl took a step back to position Boom’s mission in history:

“In aerospace, we have a sad history of ‘glory’ projects driven by national prestige politics. In 1969, we flew Concorde for the first time and landed a man on the moon. Fifty years later, moon rockets and supersonic airliners are found in our museums, not the sky.

For us, these principles enable supersonic flight that is affordable for passengers, profitable for airlines, and capable of reaching economies of scale with tens of millions of passengers. As a company, this approach means we are ensuring our own economics are solid, so we earn a profit for investors and can fund future innovation. It also means designing the aircraft to be quiet so airport communities will happily welcome it. And building in support for low-net-carbon alternative fuels, so we can be proud to operate Overture as an environmentally-sustainable airliner.”

Just five years since the company was founded, these principles have solidified into integral parts of Boom’s DNA. Scholl explained:

“Speed defines our vision for a more connected world. Safety describes our company culture and all Boom programs and processes. Sustainability is what allows this vision to endure and thrive.”

In practice, these three principles have manifested themselves in the smallest and biggest company decisions.

“Speed speaks to the core of what we are building: the world’s fastest supersonic airliner. Through faster flight, we achieve deeper human connection, minimize jet lag, and enable airlines to fly more routes in a day.

You see safety in every Boom decision: from our in-house safety management system that ensures we meet or exceed all federal standards, to our cross-collaboration programs with airlines and partners to inform procedures and operation integration.

Sustainability exists everywhere within our organizations — our 100-percent carbon neutral test program, plans for a LEED certified production facility, the partners and allies we surround ourselves with, and how we intend to fuel our engines.

Most significantly, sustainability means doing things in a way that leads to enduring value and further innovation. It means being mindful of all the impacts of our work and ensuring that we care to maximize upsides and minimize downsides — building something all stakeholders can value.”

As history has shown, innovation begets further, more advanced innovation. By building a supersonic airliner defined by speed, safety, and sustainability, Boom intends to define a foundation of travel that is better for the people who fly, our planet, and future generations. Scholl concluded:

“We named our first aircraft Overture because of what it represents — a beginning. Our first supersonic airliner will be the opening of a new era of sustainable high-speed flight, one that is faster, more affordable, safer, and more convenient.”