Sometime during the 1990s, a television advert for the Concorde featured a ripple in a crystal glass of champagne as the sole indication of the breaking of the sound barrier; champagne taste, however, was not enough to keep the airliners in service, and passenger flights aboard the supersonic planes came to an end over the exorbitant cost of a ticket.

Well, the Concorde may not have been able to balance operational costs and reasonable ticket price, but Boom Technology is looking to pick up where it left off, and provide an ultra-high-end passenger plane service for those who need to fly across the pond for a thirty-minute tete-a-tete, and be home again by cocktail hour.

Denver Colorado’s Boom Technology is developing a supersonic passenger plane that will fit just such an available niche. The 170-foot, approximately 50-seat airliner may be a few years away—estimated, as it is, to be on the market in 2023—but Boom did recently unveil its precursor, the 68-foot Baby Boom demonstrator. Powered by three 9-stage GE J85-21 turbojet engines which will collectively provide about ten thousand foot pounds of continuous thrust, the little Boom will hit a cruising speed of MACH 2.2 just as readily as the larger plane to come—besting the Concorde’s top cruising speed by almost 10%. It is a two-passenger aircraft with a range of 1000 nautical miles.

Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic are on board, too, champing at the bit (yes, it’s champing) to eventually live up to the assumptions of their name, and seeing in Boom Technology a possible eventual partner for higher aspirations; the company is assisting BT in testing at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave desert. The new supersonic passenger jet’s investment appeal lies in its fuel efficiency and aerodynamic design; it should be able to turn a tidy profit. The company is expecting to offer around 500 different daily routes, and prices on par with a current first-class flight: far below the $20K price for a Concorde ticket in 2003, the final year of service.