Fastest commercial passenger aircraft

The fastest commercial passenger aircraft is the the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Unity. On 11 July 2021, Unity reached a top speed of 2,214 mph (3,563 km/h; Mach 3) at an altitude of around 130,000 ft (40 km) while carrying a crew of six (two pilots and four passengers).

SpaceShipTwo Unity reached this record speed shortly before main engine cutoff on its parabolic climb. After the engine shut down, the aircraft continued to coast upwards on a ballistic trajectory that took it to an altitude of 86 km (53.5 mi).

On board Unity pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci were joined by four other staff from Virgin Galactic: Beth Moses (astronaut instructor), Colin Bennett (Lead Flight Operations Engineer), Sirisha Bandla (VP of Government Affairs and Research) and Richard Branson (company co-founder).

The flight profile of a typical SpaceShipTwo flight takes it above the 50-mi (80-km) boundary that is used by NASA and the US Air Force to define "space". The FAI and several other international organizations, however, use the 100-km (62-mi) Kármán Line (named for physicist Theodore von Kármán) to define space, and by this measure SpaceShipTwo does not leave the atmosphere.