The Rise and Demise of Concorde
The concept for Concorde was born from the goal of developing supersonic transport. In the 1950s Russia, America, France and Britain were all working on designs for small and medium sized transatlantic aircrafts. Britain’s was called the Type-223 and the French model was the Super-Caravelle. In the early 60s these two separate designs were merged into the Concorde project as the high cost of developing such an aviation project could not be afforded by either nation singularly. Initially the coalition was going to develop both a long-distance and short-distance version of the aircraft however it was quickly realised that prospective customers had little to no interest in the short-range iteration so it was dropped.
The British-French consortium progressed full-speed ahead in developing the long-distance model of the aircraft that would be Concorde. The design is based around an ogival shape which is standard for most aircraft, but with a very pointed drooping nose, this couple with the delta-wings, which are triangle shaped without tails, give the Concorde its iconic form.
On the 4th March 1970 Concorde reached Mach 2 for the first time, this was the primary major milestone for the project as it succeeded in its supersonic aim. In 1972 British Airways had ordered five Concorde airplanes and by the mid-70s there are over a dozen Concorde planes making transatlantic commercial flights almost every day, setting records for flights to New York from London, Hong Kong from Honolulu and from Toulouse to New York.
But by the 1980s the future of Concorde was already uncertain. The British government had been running the service at a loss year on year and was considering terminating it all together. But British Airways boss Sir John King saw an opportunity. The Concorde service was far cheaper than it should be for customers, after market research revealed that the public thought tickets were more expensive than they actually were when the government had been in charge of operations, he raised the price to match the public’s perception.
British Airways then went on to run the service at a profit and flew from London Heathrow to New York’s JFK airport daily, as well as to Miami three times a week between 1984 to 1991. A number of French and British tour operators also ran private jet charter Concorde flights to mainly European destinations frequently. These business charter flights were considered lucrative and economical by British Airways.
In 2001 an Air France Concorde flight crashed killing all passengers and crew members. This tragedy marked the beginning of the end for Concorde. With mounting noise pollution complaints from the public and an expensive service that wasn’t going to be financially viable in the oncoming tough economic times. In 2003 both British Airways and Air France announced the retirement of their respective Concorde services. Decreasing passenger numbers due to the 2000 crash as well as September 11th was the decline of the service.
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