That commercial showe lots of old British Airways aircraft, and is merely advertisment, showing the legacyt of BA and its predecessors. The Concordes are all in museums, the certificate of airworthiness revoked, EADS no longer will offer support for them, and they have been out of service for 8 years (November 26). These aircraft were getting old, the speed wasn't needed, and demand wasn't there for the amount of money charged for such an expensive aircraft. Supersonic flight will, in my mind, never be a major thing for commercial airlines, because you can't fly over land because of sonic booms, and there is no need to get to places that fast (for most people) and it messes up time zones and jet lag even more.

I don't see a motion to revive Concorde (regular services) for several reasons.

From the concept, this was the first aircraft development being able to sustain supersonic flight and service, which surely adds to the remarkable picture it still has.
But this 'first' also means that we're talking about a plane not only being uncommon when it comes to spare parts and operation techniques, but also one always riding the edge of its envelope.

Take any (and I mean any) limit you can imagine on an aircraft and you will then find out that Concorde always flew right at it. May it be temperatures, pressure settings, engine power and, most of all, speeds on that delta wing without flaps and slats.
With the later 50s and early 60s tech, this lead to a very cost intensive operation, which will never be able to compete with the low speed pseudo-economic operation nowadays planes offer.

That's no 2011 problem, it has been one from the very first years of Concorde, even when compared to the earlier planes of the subsonic regime. They did right at BA and AF later and placed Concorde in the customer regime where money did not matter that much, but time did.
It took them some time and some deals with their governments to get into that operation. The times when this was a subject to be discussed could have been the date where Concorde service ended by the way. Of course, it did not, it actually continued for the second part of the overall lifespan, the profitable one where the airlines took over the ownership and the responsibility.

That's it, the Condorde zone and that's the one which rendered the profits to establish and grow. 80s and 90s were extremely profitable for Concorde operators, although certain media tends to render Concorde service a loss of money in the overall view, it clearly wasn't.
So the trick in operating the lady was that placement in the market and, without any competitor even on the long run, it was rendered to be stable there. The lack of competition also rendered any upgrade aspect useless, so you get an idea why 'glass' never made it into Concorde, although some parts would have fitted nicely on the already fly by wire architecture.

Now, as we know, mid 2000 gave the world the first and last Concorde crash, severely impacting the image and, most of all, ending service for some time.
It's easy to ground fleets of few aircraft and, reasonably acting, authorities went that way, although some operations right after the crash continued until the decision was made.
The customer regime surely was disturbed, but the unique selling point of being a time saver was still there. So, re-entry into service was a clear option, despite the costs which came with modifications to e. g. the tanks.

Now, with talking about mid 2000, some time of no motion on the ground and a time until the modifications were applied to the aircraft, the service entry got closer to the other 'impact' date for commercial air services.

After the attacks in September 2001 not only a large amount if trust into aeroplanes and their operation was lost, but Concorde, with still flying the rich and famous on a regular basis, was considered as THE target for any future attack of that kind.
So the customer basis sort of broke apart, for all airlines, but especially on the Conc. It must not have been the price of the ticket alone, but the tons of factors affecting the decisions to go on this or that plane and model.

With that in mind, the not cheap Concorde service did not get rendered a preferable model for the two airlines to earn money.
At the end, you can have fans of Concorde at their heads (which you had), but if the smart guy from the financial branch then presents you some calculations, that you can make much more money with the 'slow trains', offering way more first class comfort and therefore achieving high enough ticket prices, you have to let go you fan status and be CEO again.  

Now with EADS being the only main spare parts and service knowledge vendor for BA and AF, some other influence came up.
They still have parts and they still have the knowledge, but running two flagships at the same time, with one even blocking some first class aspects from the other one, wasn't a nice option for them. Not to mention the engineers that are always needed but aren't there in too hight numbers.

So, maybe despite any official picture, EADS in general, namely Airbus, wasn't to keen on running Concorde with the (future) A380 setting its new flagship status and the customer basis.

Well, as the manufacturer and service vendor for Concorde, your 'pressure' can come in via two ways. You can promote the new A380 and the costs involved and you can also influence the costs on Concorde.
So we may assume that the prices on spare parts and service grew, while the smartass Airbus guys did tell AF and BA how well a large Airbus, especially the A380, may influence their outcome even in mid-terms. Therefore, the supplier's focus also changed to 'slow + volume gives you more money'.

So, after decades of service, Concorde lost the main battle, against the in-house flagship. Together with the always expensive nature of a supersonic service (even future ones won't change that, in regard to the subsonic planes), the odds did not look good for the engineering icon of commercial passenger service.


On future planes and plans, one can't stay subsonic all the time. That wouldn't fit into the picture technology in general developed and the current pseudo-economic focus is just that, a focus.
The routes involving large Atlantic and Pacific crossings will never be very sound sensitive, but offer a large potential to save time. However, 'news' on new concepts would blow this post up some more, so I'll leave them out. It's not 'just' about technology though.

Supersonic service has some tricky limits involved and while the UK and France spent a lot of money on entering service, other countries spent even more and did not receive a flyable plane or even a perspective on regular services. Yes, talking about countries there, so please don't think governmental money going into planes is something new.

It mainly breaks down to 'if there is a market, there will be a plane', and we saw that sentence introducing not only Concorde, but also some other, slower and bigger, planes.

As with all things involving big money (that's why they fly, not because they want to make you happy), the political aspect is a main influence too. If one part of the world sets up supersonic flights while another one is forced to stay subsonic, some missing/delayed landings rights and concerns may come in handy when it comes to aircraft sales, or not sales.
Even if it later turns out that e. g. takeoff noise isn't a thing where Concorde sets peak marks in regard to other jets of that time.  

However, that NY Canarsie departure was a sort of standard for her and, as far as I can tell, no other passenger plane would be able to fly it at close to MTOW.

I'm planning to buy one and then build a home cockpit.   Could take some time though.

More seriously. A Concorde sim. http://www.concordeproject.com/simulator.html Scroll down to see some videos of a former real Concorde crew flying it in 2009.
Geez, I even recall their names. I think Mr. Banister also worked and helped on the FSX Conc, despite writing some books.

Quote:

Sounds like a thrilling experience, Pete. 

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


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-z...

Although we may not need the Concorde, I would love to have had the opportunity to fly on one. If they were still flying, I would be doing my best to save up for a flight on one. Supersonic flight holds a fascination for many (me being one of them) so I doubt they would be lacking passengers regardless of the higher pricing. If a millionaire can get from London to New York in 4 hours, compared to 8 on a Jumbo, then I know if I had that kind of money I would take the fastest means to get there. After all, time IS money.

Pinatubo wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 5:41pm:


But a 4 our flight or less from New Yrok to London would mean leaving at noon an getting there at 10 at night, or leaving at 4:00 in the evening would get you there in the wee hours, where the 8-hour flight gets you there in daylight.