Boom into the supersonic future with Overture
Over the years I have put pen to paper about innovative PR related stories from around the world. In the last two weeks a new name has appeared on the block, Boom of Denver. Through their PR at the recent Farnborough Air Show, Boom has put supersonic air travel firmly back onto the agenda.
First take your minds back to sitting in your garden relaxing on a lovely warm day. Suddenly everything is blown down the garden, papers and magazines, noise is let loose, you look up and Concorde is overhead and the house is vibrating with the noise! The Boom name comes from that supersonic boom.
Well, those days are truly gone, but in 2029 supersonic passenger air travel is about to depart again from somewhere near you. Boom America is here with a slick global PR and marketing campaign that I know will win awards.
The programme is being led by a CEO with great PR skills, Blake Scholl, who is a dynamic advocate of supersonic air travel who says that Boom already have orders from two international airlines already in the skies.
The Boom PR campaign is also endorsed by third parties with some big hitters, and their web site is an advertisement for the brands associated with them and the two airlines who have already placed orders for their supersonic plane, which is named Overture.
United Airlines Ventures have ordered 15, with more to follow, to offer Newark to London flights in 3 hours 30 mins in 2029. Then Paris and Frankfurt, they say at the present, with business class fares. They have been closely followed by Japanese Airlines initially ordering 20 planes, plus more to come, for 2029.
Production is underway, with the first Overture due to take to the skies in 2023, being built in North Carolina. Each plane is quoted as costing 200 million dollars to produce.
Boom are saying in their PR messaging that ‘we concentrate on safety as a key issue followed by sustainability and then speed,’ and the planes, named Overture, are ECO friendly. Much of the PR for Overture is linked to the use of modern technology to achieve this.
For the technical and sustainability information look at the present web site. Just a few of the technical facts being used in Boom’s PR includes the way the plane optimizes overflow to reduce drag, which increases efficiency and maximises safety. Overture’s gull wings, as they are called, reduce supersonic noise, and cut down engine stress. Travelling at MACH 1,7 meets net zero carbon targets for environmental reasons, and Rolls Royce Britain are involved, with a mention on the Boom web site, with the use of 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
I say the PR strategy is very slick and professional, with the partnerships enhancing Boom, which adds to their communication strategy and crisis policies. But they still have a great deal to do to prove that supersonic travel is needed in the age we are living in.
From a personal point of view, I never had the opportunity to fly on Concorde, but hope I can one day fly on Overture.
Professor James Knight is an international businessman, public relations practitioner and academic. He was Fellow of Bournemouth University Public Relations School, guest speaker at Judge Cambridge, Surrey, Bath and Reading, International Mentor for Oxford Brookes on Hospitality. He is a Fellow of CIPR and the Society of Public Relations of America, as well as a fellow of the Institute of Directors.