Planes Are Flying Slower - Here's the Surprising Reason Why!

Did you know planes are flying slower than they used to? In this video, we dive into the surprising reasons behind the slowdown in air travel and what it means for passengers today. Find out the hidden factors affecting flight speeds! Airlines Don't Want You to Know: Why Flights Take Longer Today! The Shocking Truth: Why Planes Are Now Slower Than Ever!
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Ever wondered why your flight times seem longer despite advances in technology? This video uncovers the surprising reasons behind modern air travel's unexpected slowdown. We'll explore the complex factors affecting flight speeds, from fuel efficiency to air traffic congestion. Prepare for takeoff as we reveal the truth about why planes are flying slower in today's skies. Buckle up for a journey through the fascinating world of aviation economics and engineering!"
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[@michael.forkert]

_Makes no sense. Ground speed has increased, but in most countries ground speed for cars and trucks is restricted by law. And in the traffic jammed cities, the speed is even more restricted for obvious reasons._

[@TheLiamster]

Bro has finally returned

[@CuriousReason]

Will posting more often, I have been cooking some interesting topics

[@Kevin_Rhodes]

Why is this a surprise? Flying slower saves fuel. And modern high-bypass turbofans are simply designed to fly slower than the original turbojets because fuel efficiency is job #1.

[@larrybremer4930]

Flying slower (to a point) is true, but in the end the airframe and engines are designed to have an optimal speed and altitude to fly at a particular weight which is why climb and cruise are planned and managed by the FMC to fly an optimal profile of climb, cruise, and descent to save fuel. Generally flying higher saves gas over flying lower, and flying significantly over or under the design mach number is going to reduce efficiency. Flying slower means higher alpha and corresponding energy bleed that takes more thrust to overcome, while flying faster raises drag, and flying low raises drag vs flying higher in the thinner air. The sweet spot is the best place to fly which is around M 0.76 to 0.83 for most airliners even though most can achieve higher speeds and still be pretty efficient but most will start to encounter shockwaves at over M 0.89 as parts of the aircraft will start having supersonic airflow at those speeds and really start to increase drag and possible risk of hitting Vne where the aerodynamics can degrade causing loss of control or actually exceeding structural limits and breaking up.

[@akbolly6415]

More and more mid-haul flights using A320 or 737, they are slower than 777 or A350

[@mickyday2008]

It’s just Concorde not ‘the’ Concorde. I travelled at 1,420 mph on that bad boy. It was awesome. Cheers.

[@ondrejkratochvil4589]

a) way denser traffic in air and on ground, b) way more efficient utilization of planes, especially with low costs, which on other hand propagates any delay throught all day, c) going sonic is expensive & complicated

[@chukwunonyeanyakoha8573]

I thought I was the only one who noticed this

[@ChocolateTampon]

1:58 1st class was a different beast back then 😆

[@larrybremer4930]

A little known fact about Concorde is at cruise altitude and speed it was actually more efficient than any other airliner of the period because that is what the airframe and engine was optimized for. The problem was at low speeds its engines were horribly inefficient. While a 747 would burn around one ton of fuel taxing from the ramp to the runway a concorde may burn over 2 tons. Of its 33 tons of fuel it would burn half of it to reach cruising altitude and speed. While at cruise it was still burning fuel twice as fast as a 707 would the concord is also moving 2.5x faster so the fuel per mile covered was still less. If they had ever developed a hybrid turbojet/ramjet engine for concorde it could have been much more efficient in every flight regime than the olympus engines could ever deliver. Since such engines are being actively designed for military aircraft like darkstar its possible some civilian derivatives could find their way into a new SST but only if they can make it equally efficient to transonic flight and increase the margin of safety over concorde

[@DJTECHWHIZ]

LHR to BOS was not over 8hrs. It was closer to 6 than it was to 8hrs. 60 days ago. Your video seems a tad bit exaggerated to make your point.

[@Wh0s.Sebas27]

Nope, I flew with Delta on a 330neo and the flight time was 7 hrs 57 minutes 🧍

[@DJTECHWHIZ]

@@Wh0s.Sebas27 yep, my fight was a BA A380. Currently the biggest baddest commercial plan in the skies. My flight to and from LHR occured during the great tech outage so there wasn't as much traffic and they were definitely moving flights along to deal with the backlog.

[@robertsteinbach7325]

Before: Faster flights, better experiences, wide open airports. Now: More passengers, more planes, lower operating costs, less drag, more congestion at airports, more delays in trips and slower flights.

[@mrmozart41]

... but much lower fares (compared to the "Golden Age").

[@caleblaw3497]

The airport at 6:31 is not in Beijing at all. That is Hong Kong International Airport. I am wondering how these kind of obvious mistakes would happen - may be this video is AI generated

[@tsepheletseka5115]

To be fair, faster doesn't always mean better.

[@leezinke4351]

Great video!

[@CuriousReason]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@mc2playzz]

11:07 is an A330 not an A350

[@WillReims-s2s]

Whatever the cost of fuel is, the airports congestion is the main culprit of longer flights as a flight time is based on "gate to gate" data. Just try to imagine an aircraft leaving from the largest airports in the US, such as JFK, SFO, LAX, ORD, DTW among others and the EU such as LHR, ZRH, CDG, LGW, BRU, STU, MUN among others is spending more time from the gate to its actual departure from the runway along with the time spent at their destination where the time spent from the landing strip to the gate is using longer and longer to get too. A DC 9 leaving LAX and arriving in ORD has seen its "gate to gate" time extended by one hour while a flight from MSP to ORD has seen its "gate to gate" time extended by 30 minutes as SEA is not a huge airport HUB and has a "gate to gate" time lower than a flight leaving LAX of only 30 minutes. The average airspeed of all aircraft in the 70's was 580 miles per hour while it has been reduced to 540 miles per hour because, like a car engine, will lower its gas intake while the air frame of all aircraft of today's market are slimmer, partly made with composite material which have rendered aircraft weight up to 20% lower than the aircraft of the 70's up to 2000's.

[@youerny]

Ora the Freccia Rossa in Italy

[@amoghaggarwal]

After so long, can't wait for more videos

[@CuriousReason]

Thank you so much! Appreciate it it very much. I will posting more often now :)

[@bri77uk1]

2:29 Ah, the famously fast trio of the Concorde, TU-144 and... Douglas DC-8???

[@bri77uk1]

3:19 That's an Airbus A330, not a 787

[@Axemantitan]

The Convair 990 might have been a better example, but even it pales in comparison to the first two.

[@sriwannawat]

More sustainable

[@youerny]

Not exponentially, but the square of velocity

[@tobymichaels8171]

"Progress doesn't necessarily mean going faster..." Goebbels would be proud. Orwell is spinning in his grave.

[@richardharvey1732]

Hi Curious reason, good try!, sadly you do not seem to understand that the time it takes to travel from on location to any destination includes all the time spent in transit, this then means the total time elapsed between start and finish includes all the time spent getting to and from airports and all the time waiting for clearance and flights. This means that the speed of the actual aircraft at cruising altitude is almost irrelevant. The claim that concerns about environmental impact had any bearing on operational issues is also rather naive!, most of the 'improvements' in fuel consumption and noise were for purely commercial reasons, to save money not the environment. One has to read quite carefully between the lines and cover a great deal more information than is usually presented, that normally is distorted by their authors and publishers, by ignoring data that does not fit the required narrative and ignore actual experience again for mostly commercial reasons. Cheers, Richard.

[@simonhrabec9973]

Does the drag increases exponetially or quadratically?

[@Mark-kt5mh]

Drag increases with the square of velocity along with other constant variables. So, quadratically, good catch.

[@user-yt198]

The latter is a subset of the former.

[@simonhrabec9973]

@@user-yt198ehm… no?

[@user-yt198]

@@simonhrabec9973 See Exponentiation article in Wikipedia.

[@mrdraw2087]

Should be quadratically, but I don't know if there is a more rapid increase near the speed of sound.

[@rogergeyer9851]

When fuel efficiency is significantly better for cars at highway speeds by slowing down, this is NOT at all surprising. Unless some MAJOR advancements change the cost equation, this will likely continue, especially with the sound barrier issue.

[@donkim2976]

isnt strange that manufacturers are allowed to make cars travel over the speed limit? but then they are adding auto start/stop engines, engine cylinder deactivation, and smaller engjnes with turbos added.. btw these can help fuel efficiency but they create more engine wear and tear

[@chadswaney2048]

lol. The “shin-KAAN-sin” sent me 😂

[@jfbaro2]

TLDR; if airplanes could fly much faster, but use same full per PAX, this would solve a LOT OF PROBLEMS

[@rogergeyer9851]

Before seeing the video, I'm thinking it will be FUEL SAVINGS, i.e. economics. That dominates corporate motivation, as long as they can compete. (And yes, I could be wrong, but that seems the most obvious / logical, given today's business reality).

[@RWernsing]

This is stupid. It's all due to many more fliers.

[@engchoontan8483]

policies against political results of millennial and gen-z not weather. not plane.

[@engchoontan8483]

every item have its-consequences = politicians -> air-marshall = profitability -> cargo-bins, speed(fuel-usage), flying style, route, hubs, service-level, ... = turbo-fans with big-mouth intakes -> lower-compressor to more turbo-prop than turbo-fan = ground-services lacking -> APU additions = bad ATC ground-control -> pneumaticwls impeller drive wheels = military dominate -> lousy everything when no-money but talk-big = BMW big-mouth, loud-mouth, talk without substance, cannot walk the talk but want-many from thin-air, not-personao capability so use others to brag, big-greed without ability, handicap mindset of religions-monotheism, ... A vs B = trade-offs airports smelly cunts

[@engchoontan8483]

go ahead and full power = you wants include silly aerodynamics for extended-long-range since emirates b777 instead of a380 and countered by a350... = winglets = narrow-body = long-dick = ... rudder controls integrated with ailerons... stupid bitches says -> you suffer

[@engchoontan8483]

mcas as limiter to throttle-position-full unlock car-modes = launch, race, sport, normal, economy = bass clear terminal, sucker clear runway and destroy engine, thruster-flaps screw the tail-gater, ... (paid options)

[@jojoneo]

3:19 This plane is dangerous to fly. Without longitudinal control, it will break.

[@EtihadA38068]

No it isn’t

[@epiculo2]

Battery-operated cars are a scam.

[@cjn21b]

why?

[@epiculo2]

@@cjn21b No range, high costs, inherently dangerous in case of crash/fire. Should i go on?

[@heronimousbrapson863]

Too early to tell. People said the same thing about air travel and automobiles in the early 20th century.

[@cjn21b]

@@epiculo2 yes please, I’d like to laugh some more!

[@epiculo2]

@@cjn21b Ok, Woke Generic Guy.

[@frutdafruit]

clearly made by AI

[@CuriousReason]

Nope

[@josue_kay]

Nonsense

[@georgeimpraim5945]

1:31 what are those lights in the sky?

[@CheeshenLee-jf4sn]

Airplanes

[@CheeshenLee-jf4sn]

Landing

[@CheeshenLee-jf4sn]

😊

[@CuriousReason]

👽 /s

[@CheeshenLee-jf4sn]

@@CuriousReason 👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽

[@rasmis]

11:46 I've noticed the smoother rides. When I was a kid, I loved a bit of turbulence or a slightly bumpy landing, but it's been decades since I last experienced any kind of disturbence.