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Concorde. Airplane of the era. Part 2

16/07/2015 by Aviation Times

When in 1967 the very first prototype of the aircraft rolled out of the hangar it seemed that aviation has been changed forever. A commercial supersonic airplane will be able to connect people in the way it never has been connected before. Suddenly the world became much smaller in the best way it can be.

The prototype 001 made his first taxi trials in 1968. Then 1969 it made a 42-minute maiden flight. The British prototype has been finished a bit later in 1968 while the first 22-minute maiden flight has been conducted in 1969. Shortly, both prototypes have been presented at the Paris Air Show.

Concorde beautiful to watch – too expensive to fly?

In 1972 team started an expensive 30 days sales tour around the world to promote the Concorde. The presumption for the Concorde sales has been very promising. And why wouldn’t it be, when we are talking about the supersonic travel. Representatives traveled from airport to airport presenting the new state of the art aircraft to the main airlines of the world. And the good impression has definitely been made. The orders started filling up: Air India, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, Pan Am, Qantas and other airlines made a total order of 74 aircraft. It seemed that supersonic aircraft will rule the aviation, but suddenly the house of card has fallen apart.

Assumption, that supersonic flights will be permissible has been unrealistic. The supersonic flights with their sonic boom made such noise, that it has been banned to fly over the land leaving Concorde just with half of planned destinations. Although to be fair, those remaining destinations have been impressive with the flight time, for example the route New York – Rio De Janeiro has been shrunk from 10 flight hours to 6h and 15min; Los Angeles – Tokyo from 13h up to 6h 15 min; Paris – Sidney 28h 40 min up to 15 hours of flight.

Even though the time of flight has been amazingly shortened, the airlines that made the preorders had their doubts. The crucial doubts were about the finances. The information resources point a few reasons of Concorde sales failure: some say that the aircraft was just too expensive and too unprofitable, others have been attracted by the Boeing 747 wide body aircraft which has been about to be released and carried four times more passengers than the Concorde, finally the global oil crisis. Whatever reason it was, the orders started to get cancel. And since there were no refundable contracts all aircraft by the 16 airlines has been canceled.

Air France and British Airways – a lifebuoy for the Concorde

Concorde struggled to make sales and with no further success it has been clear than primary predictions of 150 aircraft being sold were absolutely failing. That is when it has been decided by the British and French governments to give the existing aircraft to the national airlines: British Airways and Air France.

In 1976 British Airways has been ready to start the first passenger services with 7 supersonic aircraft on their fleet. The first Concorde commercial services started with departures from London and Paris on 21st of January. However, the most desirable route has been London-New York. Yet, due to the speculations regarding the noise of the Concorde in-flight, the aircraft has been banned in United States. After many discussions and even protests by the USA society, it was agreed to make a sound test in order to evaluate the level of noise. So the test has been done and after the successful results the ban has been lifted and in 1977 Concorde has been able to make the “blue ribbon” route.

Struggles to make profit

So the most amazing advancement of technology started flying commercial routes and… spent six years going in debt. It was obvious that some arrangements have to be done in order to make some money from such expensive aircraft. So management team looked over the whole Concorde business scheme, starting with the tickets ending with the sandwiches being served on board. It has been asked random business men how much they think the ticket cost. And it appeared that they thought that the ticket to fly with Concorde is much more expensive. So it was clear, that the first thing to do was to raise the price of the tickets. In addition, the whole brand became a sign of luxury available for VIP’s. Flying a Concorde became some kind of social status approval. And this is how Concorde started to make money.

Flying a Concorde

Flying a Concorde has been a whole new experience: flying in twice the speed of sound and in such height when the curvature of the Earth is visible. Although it should be noted, that even though the Concorde was the brand of luxury it could not offer high class comfort. The seating was tight and because of the limited room in the aircraft the carry-on luggage was severely restricted. However, the service during the flight was top-notch: the highest quality foods, drinks and personal care by the flight crew. Also, what is interesting, that every passenger has been issued with the certificate signed by the aircraft captain, airline’s chairman and chief executive, noting that they have definitely flown the supersonic aircraft – Concorde.

The crash

Concorde successfully flew without fatal crashes for 24 years. It has been the safest aircraft at that moment. Until July 25th in 2000. The Air France flight 4590 moved from the holding point at 14:34 and at 14:44, less than 3 minutes after the take-off the aircraft crashed near the airport killing all 109 people on board on 4 people on the ground.

Apparently during the take off Concorde ran over the strip of metal on the runway causing the explosion of the tires. As stated in an official accident report: “Large chunks of the rubber were hurled upwards to the underside of the wing which caused a shockwave in a fuel tank, causing the rupture from the side. The venting fuel, estimated at up to 100 liters per second, ignited, upsetting the performance of two engines”. The pilots couldn’t stop the aircraft at that point, the second engine has been shut down, even though pilots tried to land the aircraft Concorde reared up, stalled and crashed on to “La Patte d’Oie” Hotel in Gonesse.

Post crash effects and operations

After the crash, Air France immediately canceled all the flights, out of respect British Airways did the same, but only for one day. However after three weeks, on 15th of August, Concorde’s Certificate of Airworthiness has been withdrawn. In order to operate the aircraft some changes had to be done, focusing on tires, landing gear, electrical power and etc. All the modifications for BA cost £17m per aircraft, plus £2m per aircraft for inside design remodeling. After all the changes has been done, on 2001 September 5th the Concorde was re-certificated.

During 1996-1998 the BA spent approximately £20m for its Concorde fleet maintenance in order to renew its lifetime, which meant that it could fly up to 2009. Further operations would have cost another fortune. However in 2003 both Air France and British Airways announced that they are planning to retire Concorde that year. From the official statement of the Air France chairman Hean-Cyril Spinetta: “The worsening economic situation in the last few months led to a decline in business traffic which particularly weights on Concorde’s results. Maintenance costs have substantially increased since the return to service. Operating the Concorde has become a severely and structurally loss-making operation” (Stephen Skinner “Concorde”, 2009).

Air France made its final commercial Concorde flight from Paris to New York City on 30th of May 2003. Air France’s final Concorde flight took place on 27th of June 2003 when F-BVFC retired to Toulouse. Accordingly British Airways retired its Concorde fleet on 24 October 2003 after a farewell trip around the North America has been completed. Concorde, the first commercial supersonic aircraft, the aircraft of the era had finished its journey.

Source: BAA