Shift Magazine - May 2021 - 17

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y now you've heard of mobility as
a service. Aircraft manufacturer
Aerion Supersonic has its eyes
on " speed as a service " - that
is, supersonic flight technology capable of
connecting any two locations across the
globe within three hours.
Matt Cram, chief commercial officer
at the Reno, Nev., company, says its
approach to sustainability along with its
investors, suppliers and market support
are what will make this possible.
Cram spoke with Deputy Mobility Editor
Pete Bigelow about the 19-year-old company and its vision on the April 19 episode
of " Shift: A Podcast About Mobility. " Here
are edited excerpts.

Q: WHAT ARE YOU HOPING TO DO?
A: At Aerion, we are building the next

generation of global mobility networks.
We're taking multiple modes of transportation, including a supersonic business jet,
and just condensing the amount of time it
takes to get from point A to point B. What
we're looking for is the quickest solutions
from the different points.

Q: IT OBVIOUSLY COMES WITH HIGH
CAPITAL COSTS AND LONG LEAD
TIMES AND IS ON THE THRESHOLD
OF POSSIBILITY.
A: In some ways, it is a moonshot. But

you have to set those kinds of goals
to achieve them. We look at the AS2, a
supersonic business jet, as the first start.
We recently announced the AS3, which
will be a 3,000-mile-an-hour airplane.
What's unique about that airplane is it will
make West Coast to Asia a day trip: It'll do
L.A. to Tokyo in less than three hours. It is
a 20-plus-year road map that we have, but
we think it's very doable.

WITH
MATT CRAM

L.A. to Tokyo in less than 3 hours? It will
be doable, and the market is ready, says
Aerion Supersonic's commercial chief

A rendering of the AS2, the
supersonic aircraft Aerion
intends to produce in Florida

Q: WHY DID PROGRESS ON
SUPERSONIC TRAVEL GO AWAY
FOR A WHILE?
A: Any discussion on supersonics is

really going to start around the Concorde.
It's hard to find somebody who flew on
the Concorde and doesn't think about it
nostalgically.
[But] the Concorde was very noisy. It
used afterburning engines. It was very
expensive to operate. It required state
subsidies. And ultimately, only 14 were
ever put in revenue service. We look at
some of those lessons to understand that
to be successful, supersonic flight has to
be sustainable.

Q: WHEN DO YOU EXPECT THE AS2
AND AS3 TO REACH THE MARKET?
A: We recently broke ground on a facil-

ity where we'll be building the AS2, in
Melbourne, Fla. Pieces come together
2023; first flight 2025; and first delivery
to a customer 2027. The first flight for the
AS3 will be this decade and enter into service early 2030s.
We've been really pleased with the
market acceptance of the airplane. We
currently have an approximately $11

billion backlog. We're still several years
away and have almost 100 orders. It
really shows how eager the market is.

Q: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN BEING A SUPERSONIC
AIRCRAFT MANUFACTURER
AND BEING A GLOBAL MOBILITY
NETWORK?
A: We almost look at it as speed as a ser-

vice. We want to integrate a larger ecosystem and take people from where they
are to where they want to be. It's not necessarily airport-to-airport. It's downtown
Manhattan to Mayfair [in London]. We
want to optimize all of that around speed
and efficiency.

Q: WHAT SEPARATES YOU? IS
THERE ROOM FOR MORE THAN ONE
PLAYER?
A: There are a lot of relatively new

entrants into the space, which speaks to
the strength of the market and the convergence of technology that now make this
much more doable than just a few years
ago. We feel like we're in the lead, and it's
based on strong investors, strong suppliers and strong market support. n
may 2021 * shift

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5/13/21 2:56 PM
https://www.autonews.com/shift-podcast-about-mobility/aerion-supersonics-matt-cram-speed-service-episode-93 https://www.autonews.com/shift-podcast-about-mobility/aerion-supersonics-matt-cram-speed-service-episode-93
Shift Magazine - May 2021

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