United's Kirby Calls Boom Overture 2029 Target Unrealistic

United Airlines chief executive Scott Kirby says Boom Supersonic will miss its 2029 entry-into-service target for the Overture airliner — a judgment delivered by the man whose airline holds 15 firm commitments and options for 35 more of the aircraft. United's purchases remain conditional on the jet meeting safety, operating and sustainability requirements, and the schedule is now the weakest link in that equation.

"It's not going to happen in '29. It's going to take longer," Kirby said on the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast, in an interview published on October 28, 2026. He argued that development and certification will outlast Boom's projections.

What does Kirby's verdict mean for United's order?

United announced its agreement with Boom in June 2021, covering 15 Overture aircraft plus options for another 35. At the time, the companies outlined a rollout in 2025, a first flight in 2026 and passenger service in 2029. That first flight has not materialized, and Kirby's comment suggests the customer no longer takes the published timeline seriously.

Kirby was not uniformly negative. He said United could still become the first airline to operate the Overture if the program succeeds, while cautioning that significant hurdles remain and success is far from guaranteed. He also praised Boom founder and chief executive Blake Scholl, including the company's expansion into turbines that generate electricity for data centers.

Overture is designed to cruise at Mach 1.7 with a range of 4,250 nautical miles and seating for 60 to 80 passengers. Boom's advertised order book includes 130 orders and pre-orders from United, American Airlines and Japan Airlines, with final assembly planned in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Where does Boom's engine program actually stand?

The company's latest milestone is a propulsion one — and notably, it serves the energy business first. On October 22, 2026, Boom announced completion of its first prototype turbine core, called Sprint Core, which combines the compressor, combustor and high-pressure turbine. Initial firing is expected before the end of November 2026 at Boom's Colorado test site. The prototype carries more than 1,000 sensors to measure behavior during testing, the company says.

Boom says the core will support two products: Symphony, the engine being developed for Overture, and Superpower, a 42-megawatt natural gas turbine designed to power AI data centers. The company has also unveiled a nearly 200,000-square-foot turbine manufacturing campus in Centennial, Colorado, representing a planned $150 million investment.

The delivery sequence is revealing. Boom targets initial Superpower deliveries for mid-2027, followed by 25 turbines annually in 2028 and 50 in 2029. Boom presents the energy business as an economical way to advance its aircraft engine: its Overture program page states that operating experience and reliability data from Superpower will inform Symphony's development once the stationary turbine enters service. The ground-based product, in other words, flies first in the company's stated development sequence.

What is the regulatory backdrop?

The effort comes more than two decades after Concorde's final commercial flight in October 2003, and Boom is not the only casualty-adjacent entrant: Aerion halted its AS2 supersonic business jet program in 2021 after failing to secure needed funding.

NASA is separately testing its X-59 research aircraft to demonstrate quieter supersonic flight and gather data for regulators. The FAA has proposed replacing the longstanding US ban on civil supersonic flight over land with a noise-based operating standard, aiming to finalize its supersonic operating and noise rules by mid-2027. Those changes, however, would not replace the need to certify Overture and its engines — the certification burden Kirby now expects to stretch beyond 2029.