[mshook]

My take is it's not even an economic problem. Unless you fly really fast (like Mach 3++), flying east sucks.

Let's assume we have a plane capable of Mach 3+: the SR-71 holds a record for flying from NYC to London in 1h54 and it could do well over Mach 3. Let's assume our plane can do the same in 2 hours.

If you take off from NYC at 10am, you will land at 5pm local time in London. Sure it's a lot faster than a regular flight but you didn't gain as much as flying west bound.

With the same 2 hour flight (because when you fly that high, wind doesn't make such a big difference), you could leave London at 10am and land in NYC at 7am local time, that's so much better.

But that's for a plane doing Mach 3+. Boom is planning to fly slower than Concorde (Mach 1.7 vs Mach 2.02).

Concorde did that in 3 hours FYI.