The FAA wants to end the 50-year ban on supersonic flight — and Alaska has the sky for it

For more than half a century, it's been illegal to fly faster than sound over the United States. The rule, on the books since 1973, is what kept the Concorde subsonic over land and effectively grounded the dream of coast-to-coast supersonic travel. Now the Federal Aviation Administration wants to lift it.

The agency has proposed scrapping the blanket ban, calling it "outdated and no longer appropriate." What doomed supersonic flight over land was the sonic boom — the thunderclap a plane drags behind it when it breaks the sound barrier. New designs and flight techniques can now soften or redirect that boom so it never reaches the ground, and the FAA would allow supersonic flights as long as no boom is heard below. The move follows a 2025 executive order pushing the U.S. to lead the next generation of supersonic aviation.

If supersonic travel does come back, few places stand to feel it like Alaska. This is a state defined by distance, where a trip to the Lower 48 is a serious journey — and a state with something supersonic flight badly needs: vast stretches of sky over almost no one, exactly the kind of empty airspace where a jet could break the sound barrier without a boom bothering a soul. Anchorage, already one of the busiest cargo hubs on Earth and a waypoint on the polar routes between America and Asia, sits right at the crossroads.

It's far from settled — the proposal is open for public comment through mid-August, and separate rules for takeoff and landing noise still have to be written. But after 50 years, the door to flying faster than sound over American soil, Alaska's included, is finally being pushed open.