Do box-wing aircraft configurations add financial value? Results from an academic-based experience

In recent years, the air transport system has faced a number of major setbacks and demands, making the re-evaluation of traditional design and operational paradigms essential. This has also highlighted the need to explore new aircraft configurations offering improved capacity, efficiency, reduced environmental impacts, and better adaptability to evolving market demands. Consequently, this paper focuses on box-wing aircraft, an innovative aircraft configuration that might be a future improvement of current commercial airplanes' tube-and-wing design. While the innovative box-wing configuration has been studied from various perspectives, no research has examined it from a financial standpoint. This paper aims to explore this issue in depth. By leveraging data and financial models developed over a three-year interventionist experience with the Horizon 2020 PARSIFAL project, this article evaluates whether a box-wing aircraft could be a financially viable alternative to existing aircraft configurations. The results suggest that the introduction of a box-wing aircraft as a future mode of air transportation could provide the aviation sector and society with substantial financial benefits.