The Reddit thread revisits a genuinely interesting chapter of aviation history: during the 1960s and early 1970s, airlines including Air France, Pan Am, TWA, BOAC, and others placed order options for both Concorde and the Boeing 2707, America's competing supersonic transport program. This wasn't unusual industry behavior—it reflected the standard practice of hedging against an uncertain, high-stakes technology race where no airline wanted to be left without SST capacity if a competitor secured it first. Airlines routinely place non-binding options or letters of intent on multiple competing aircraft programs to preserve delivery slots and negotiating leverage, only firming up actual purchase commitments once a program's viability, economics, and certification path become clearer. In the SST case, both programs were unproven and years from entering service, so carriers spread their bets across both American and European offerings simultaneously.
The Boeing 2707 was ultimately cancelled by Congress in 1971 before a prototype ever flew, due to ballooning costs, environmental concerns over sonic booms, and doubts about economic viability—effectively resolving the "dual order" question by eliminating one competitor outright. Concorde proceeded to production but with a far smaller fleet than originally envisioned; most airlines that had held options, including major U.S. carriers, ultimately declined to convert them into firm orders once the 1973 oil crisis hit and the true operating economics of a fuel-thirsty, noise-restricted supersonic airliner became apparent. Only Air France and British Airways (via BOAC) ended up operating Concorde commercially, receiving their aircraft essentially as state-subsidized national flag carriers rather than through normal commercial fleet planning.
For pilots and operators today, this history is a useful case study in how speculative options differ from committed fleet decisions, and how quickly technological, regulatory, and economic conditions can invalidate an aircraft program that looked promising on paper. It also illustrates a recurring pattern in aviation: dual-sourcing and provisional ordering across competing airframes remains common practice even now, seen in how airlines today hold options across the 737 MAX and A320neo families, or how multiple carriers have placed conditional orders with both Boom Supersonic and other emerging manufacturers without full commitment.
The broader relevance extends directly to the current supersonic revival. Boom Supersonic's Overture program, along with renewed NASA and industry interest in low-boom overland flight (the X-59 QueSST project), echoes the same fundamental challenges that killed the 2707 and limited Concorde: sonic boom regulation, fuel economics, noise certification, and the capital risk of a narrow addressable market. Pilots tracking these developments should recognize that airline "orders" for next-generation SSTs, much like those placed for Concorde and the 2707 decades ago, often represent speculative positioning rather than firm operational commitments—a distinction that matters when assessing whether supersonic passenger flight will meaningfully return to commercial operations or repeat the fate of its predecessors.