United Airlines CEO doubts Boom's supersonic airliner will be ready by 2029
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby says Boom Supersonic's Overture airliner will not be delivered in 2029. The US company has meanwhile turned to making gas turbines for AI data centers, but has lost one major customer.
Scott Kirby, chief executive of United Airlines, has voiced doubt that US company Boom Supersonic will deliver its Overture supersonic passenger jet in 2029, as its official timeline states. He made the remark in an interview on the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast, published on October 28. "It's not going to happen in '29 — it's going to take longer," he told host Monica Langley. Kirby added that Boom must still clear many hurdles, including certification by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and that success is not guaranteed. He nonetheless praised Boom CEO Blake Scholl and the company overall. In March, Kirby had put the odds of Overture entering commercial service at "50-50."
What Boom has promised
The company's press releases have described certification and the first paying passengers by 2029. Boom has conditional agreements with American Airlines, Japan Airlines and United Airlines, involving non-refundable deposits of undisclosed size. In 2024 and 2025 it flew its XB-1 demonstrator to show a "boomless cruise" concept based on the Mach cutoff effect. In June, the FAA proposed a rule that would overturn a long-standing ban on commercial supersonic flights over the United States. North Carolina officials, whose state provided over $50 million toward the Overture factory in Greensboro, have raised questions because the facility, completed in 2024, has mostly sat dormant.
A turn toward data centers
Boom has put much recent effort into natural gas turbines to power AI data centers. On October 22 it unveiled a factory in Centennial, Colorado, for a 42-megawatt turbine called Superpower. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Colorado Governor Jared Polis attended. The first turbines are due in mid-2027, with output rising to 25 a year in 2028 and 50 by 2029.
On September 25, Scholl acknowledged on X the loss of a $1.25 billion deal in which data center developer Crusoe would have bought 29 turbines. He said Boom would deliver about 250 MW of Superpowers next year to other sites. A prototype turbine core, Sprint Core, intended to power both the turbine and the airliner's engine, is to be fired for the first time before Thanksgiving.
