701151 wrote on Nov 13^th, 2011 at 7:32am:

I'm pretty sure all those museums wouldn't give up their concordes anyways...

The museums don't own them, they have leased them I think, but they would have no say if they were needed. Which they won't be.


In the final 10-15 years Concorde was very much in demand and profitable.

(From Wikipedia, as it's what I was writing here anyway) In the early 80s new BA boss Sir John King realised that he had a premier product that was underpriced, and after carrying out a market survey, British Airways discovered that customers thought Concorde was more expensive than it actually was (because most customers' companies paid for flights). Ticket prices were progressively raised to match these perceptions. It is reported that British Airways then ran Concorde at a profit, unlike their French counterpart. British Airways's profits have been reported to be up to £50 million in the most profitable years, with a total revenue of £1.75 billion, before costs of £1 billion.


Paris to Tokyo in 2.5 hrs. EADS reveals new hypersonic Concorde sucessor. June 2011 - http://www.france24.com/en/20110620-eads-reveals-hypersonic-successor-concorde-zehst-jean-botti-eads