MiG Flights are The Only Way to go Supersonic Today

Flying supersonic jet was never cheap. The Concorde jet was costly to run and maintain that led to high ticket prices. MiG jet flights in Russian MiG jets are even more expensive. A MiG 29 flight costs more than USD 15000 for the MiG flight only. And the cost to travel to Russia is not included in that basic price for Russian MiG flights. Advanced MiG flights like stratospheric Edge of Space flights cost even more for the MiG flight only.

Aviation freaks go crazy for this MiG flights, and many expect that this MiG jet flights will be over soon because the political situation has changed much in Russia. Rising nationalism and xenophobia surely do not help business bringing foreigners to Russian airbases for MiG flights. It might help that the financial situation for the Russian state worsened after falling oil and gas prices during the crisis in 2008/2009. It even seems that gaz prices might remain low thanks to shale gaz and LNG, which hits the state-owned Russian gaz monopolist, Gazprom, quite hard.

Bad for the government and the Russian people, but foreigners, military tourists and especially military tourists booking Russian MiG flights might profit from this situation. Firstly Russia is cash-hungry and not exporting many MiG jet aircrafts these days, secondly falling oil prices might cap the cost for MiG flights. The cost for MiG jet flights have been raising steadily in the years before. A MiG 29 flight was available for less than USD 8000 some years ago, rising salaries and especially rising oil prices boosted the costs for MiG flights.

So hopefully we have reached a top for Russian MiG flights. If MiG flights stay available and more or less affordable, they are the last remaining chance for a supersonic jet flight. If Russian MiG 29 flights are stopped, going supersonic will even become much more expensive: Suborbital space vehicles reaching supersonic speed, like the Virgin Galactic space project or the Xcor Lynx project will cost between USD 100000 and USD 250000.