Why have airline travel times not decreased over the decades?
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The main reason is that fuel efficiency is the name of the game with airlines.
The number one differentiator between any two flights between the same airports is price. Time and time again, it’s been found that price is basically the only thing a lot of people consider when choosing an airline to fly on. Having the lowest price matters.
And when you want to have the lowest price, you need to make the flight happen as cheaply as possible, which means flying at the most fuel efficient speed. Anything above about 80% the speed of sound will actually start to become very fuel inefficient, so the practical speed limit for efficiency is kind of locked in.
Now there is one way that airlines do compete for speed, and that is to offer more direct routes. For example, some airlines fly direct routes between multiple east coast cities and Hawaii, even if it could be cheaper to bring everyone through LAX and then put them on potentially fewer trans-pacific flights overall. However, passengers will choose fewer layovers, which is where “speed” is a factor for passengers. A 2 hour layover matters, but 20 minutes of flight time doesn’t.
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