United's President Predicted in 1976 the Airline Would Fly Supersonic Jets in 2026

In 1976, the president of United Airlines made a number of predictions about what air travel would look like in 50 years—the impossibly futuristic year 2026. And if you take a quick peek at a calendar you may notice we’ve somehow arrived in that distant time. United’s president, Richard J. Ferris, got some things right, like the idea that the U.S. government would deregulate the airline industry. But he also got a lot wrong, including the idea that there would only be three major airline carriers and that supersonic jets would be common by the 2020s. The predictions by Ferris appeared in an article for the Chicago Tribune which was syndicated in newspapers across the country. The article opened with quite a bold statement in which Ferris insisted that “had American aviation evolved as swiftly as the computer industry, only nine years would have passed between the Wright Brothers flight and manned satellites.” Commercial air travel in the 1970s was regulated by the government, restricting everything from the routes that could be opened to the prices that could be charged. Ferris predicted in 1976 that the airline industry would be deregulated by 2026 but he wouldn’t have to wait nea