United Airlines chief Scott Kirby told the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast on 28 October 2026 that the path to a commercial Overture aircraft by 2029 remains uncertain. He noted that Boom still faces many technical and regulatory obstacles, despite conditional purchase agreements with American, Japan and United Airlines that involve non-refundable deposits of undisclosed size.
Boom first attracted attention by flying its XB-1 demonstrator in 2024 and 2025, showcasing a "boomless cruise" concept that exploits the Mach-cutoff effect. The approach involves cruising just above supersonic speed at high altitude so that shockwaves bend upward, reducing ground-level impact, a method distinct from NASA’s needle-nose X-59 program that began test flights in October 2025.
The company’s revival of supersonic travel has received political backing, with the Trump administration issuing an executive order that prompted the FAA in June 2026 to propose a rule overturning the historic ban on commercial supersonic flights over the United States. This regulatory shift was intended to smooth the certification path for aircraft such as Overture.
Boom completed construction of its Overture assembly plant in 2024 at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, but the site has largely remained idle. State officials had contributed more than $50 million in public funds to the project. In contrast, the firm unveiled a new facility in Centennial, Colorado on 22 October, dedicated to producing a 42-megawatt natural-gas turbine branded Superpower, an event attended by the U.S. Secretary of Energy and the Colorado governor.
The Superpower turbine is slated for its first customer deliveries in mid-2027, with production targets of 25 units in 2028 and 50 units in 2029. Industry analysts note a growing preference among technology firms for natural-gas generators, including mobile truck-mounted units and aeroderivative turbines originally built for aircraft and naval vessels, to power rapidly expanding AI data centers.
Boom recently disclosed on X that it lost a $1.25 billion contract with data-center developer Crusoe, which had intended to buy 29 turbines for facilities in Texas serving companies such as Oracle, Google and Microsoft. The company said it will still supply roughly 250 megawatts of Superpower capacity to other sites, while a prototype turbine core named Sprint Core, intended for both the Superpower and the Symphony engine of Overture, is scheduled for its first test fire at the Colorado Air & Space Port before Thanksgiving.