Zeke, no question cycling it more would be only the beginning of making the thing worthwhile- for the airlines another cost savings would be reducing the need for extra crew on the handful of routes where the time saving would bring it over the threshold. Certainly for NAT the extra speed would mean squat, both for pax and the bean-counters. I do see one advantage here for crossing the pond, though- that airspace is getting pretty crowded these days and I'm sure the good folks in Gander would love to see some of that traffic shifted up to 450. In some ways it looks like Boeing and Airbus are taking opposite approaches to the problem of increased traffic- Airbus jamming us by the thousand into fewer planes, Boeing sending more planes above the traffic.
Anito4a- that starship looks an awful lot like that Italian turboprop.
Eecam- I agree that Boeing has been running on inertia far too long. Airbus is light-years ahead in the technology going into the medium-to-large category, Canadair invented a whole new class of jet airliners, De Havilland came up with a way to make a turboprop cabin as quiet as a jet, but what has Boeing ever done? They even owned DH while the Q-series Dashes were under development and they ended up losing a mint and practically giving away the technology to Bombardier. Go figure.
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Nuke the rainforest- it's more efficient than logging.