FAA Moves On Allowing Civilian Supersonic Air Travel

Reuters reports:

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Monday it is moving to rewrite testing rules to allow for the eventual return of civil supersonic air travel.

At an event in Paris on Monday, Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell said the agency is working to “enable the return of civil supersonic travel, while ensuring the environmental impacts are understood and properly addressed.”

Later this week, the FAA will issue a proposed rule for “special flight authorization for supersonic aircraft,” Elwell said. This is the first step toward revising the FAA’s 45-year-old rules governing supersonic transport.

When the change was first proposed last year, multiple environmental groups filed a joint objection, citing “extreme climate effects.” The Concorde was retired in 2003, three years after a crash that killed everyone aboard.