Why are airlines making bigger planes and not faster planes?
The reason airliners are not going faster is that it requires more fuel, and right now fuel is a huge part of the operating cost of an airline (25% to 33% of total costs). Ironically, the fastest airliners are the ones designed before the 1970s, such as the 747 and the Concorde. These aircraft were designed when fuel was cheap and high speed was an important advantage of air travel. The 747 can fly faster than any other airliner currently in service; its successors placed more of an emphasis on economy rather than speed. In fact, air travel is slower than it was 40 years ago. Not only are the most modern airliners designed for slower speeds, but airlines fly aircraft at the most economical speeds, rather than the fastest speeds (the fastest speeds are never the most economical speeds). In addition to this, vastly greater air traffic today requires airliners to fly slower along more complex routes in order to accommodate all the airplanes in the air, so getting from point A to point B i
