Does China’s 1000km per hour ultra-high-speed train spell more trouble for the airline business?

A decade ago, when Elon Musk came up with the idea for Hyperloop - a brand name for maglev (magnetic levitation) ultra-fast rail travel - the future for many air routes began to be questioned.

But not only has Hyperloop failed (or, at least, the US version of it), but there have been precious few new developments in ultra-fast rail travel at all.

In Europe for example, rail travel, heavily supported by governments and the EU, is no faster than it was two decades ago, even though it is the 'preferred' transport method for journeys of 600km or less, which is a diktat that is causing problems for airlines.

China leads the way in this technology and has surpassed existing speed records. The country is building a test track between out-of-the-way cities, which means less attention globally if things go wrong (as they easily could).

There are still technical issues to be resolved to guarantee regular services at 1,000km per hour, which is faster than many jet aircraft journeys, to which might be added the huge cost of these projects and the difficulty of getting both passengers and those living near the lines 'onboard' with them.

But China has a pretty good track record at seeing this sort of thing through, and it behoves airline and airport management to start thinking now about how to combat it commercially.