Japan Airlines Co. has agreed to invest $10 million USD in an ultra-fast passenger jet which will be built by Boom Technology Inc., based in Colorado in the United States.

The Bloomberg reported Tuesday that Japan Air also agreed to take an option to purchase up to 20 aircraft, the two companies said in a joint statement posted on the carrier’s website.

The Asian carrier is the second company to publicly announce an intention to purchase Boom’s supersonic jet, after billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic.

Boom’s idea is to build a 45-to-55 seat aircraft that cruises at Mach 2.2 (1,451 miles per hour), or capable of whisking passengers between New York and London in about three hours.

The Concorde, flown by British Airways and Air France at twice the speed of sound, retired in 2003 after almost three decades in service as customers abandoned the jets amid declining economies and maintenance costs to keep them flying soared.

Japan Air, also known as JAL, will provide its knowledge and experience as an airline to support Boom in developing the aircraft, the company said.

The aircraft, which aims for an entry into service in the mid-2020s, will have a range of 8,334 kilometers, roughly the distance between Beijing and London.

Meanwhile, according to the report, Boom Technology had commitments for 75 planes and customers have paid significant deposits, CEO Blake Scholl said at the Paris Air Show in June. Orders were spread across five airlines.