I think there has been a ton of improvement in commercial flight — think safety, for example — but my understanding is that there has simply been no incentive to improve flight times. Customers aren’t willing to pay for it. Which sort of makes sense: Generally speaking flight time is less than half of the total door-to-door time of air travel.
> Generally speaking flight time is less than half of the total door-to-door time of air travel.
Maybe for domestic flights but for international flights (especially if you live in Australia) it would improve the flying experience. I've noticed a big difference on my body when flying 8hr vs 12hrs.
It may not seem like a big difference but those extra 4hrs put a massive strain on your body and mind.
> there has simply been no incentive to improve flight times
It's more that you just run in to real limits of physics; many planes already fly at mach 0.8 to 0.9, and going faster than sound is always going to be difficult because of the sonic boom. Realistically, there just isn't that much you can do without solving that first, which is a difficult problem to solve in a practical way. And even if you do, the fuel efficiency is always going to make it much more expensive.
Would you be willing to pay 50% more for tix per flight? I think that’s the issue. And airlines have realized that, no: By-and-large people prefer low price over saving a few hours.
