50 years since Concorde’s first scheduled flight • The Register
It is 50 years since Concorde began scheduled passenger flights, with British Airways operating a London-Bahrain service and Air France flying from Paris to Rio de Janeiro.
Technically, the Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 was the first supersonic passenger airliner, entering service on December 26, 1975. However, Concorde began scheduled passenger service earlier, on January 21, 1976, while the Tu-144’s passenger flights didn’t start until 1977.
Concorde could fly at more than twice the speed of sound, yet the lucrative transatlantic routes to the US were not viable, casting more doubt on the aircraft’s already ropy economics. Concerns about noise meant it was banned from landing in the US until later in 1976, with operations permitted in New York from 1977.
The first scheduled flight took off amid technical, political, and financial obstacles. It was clear that while Concorde was an impressive technological feat, the economics did not make sense given slower aircraft like Boeing’s 747 could carry far more passengers. Other factors such as the 1973 oil crisis shifted opinion away from the Concorde toward more fuel-efficient options.
By 1976, only British Airways and Air France remained customers for the aircraft, and the production line was winding down. The final Concorde that was manufactured first flew in 1979.
In May 2003, Air France flew its last commercial flight, and British Airways retired its Concorde fleet on October 24, 2003.
Multiple factors contributed to the retirement of the fleet: one of the aircraft crashed during take-off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on July 25, 2000 and operators cited low passenger numbers after the crash; a broader slump in air travel following the September 11 terror attacks in 2001; and Airbus’s decision to halt the supply of replacement parts.
Many of the remaining Concordes are on display, and we highly recommend a trip to the Sinsheim museum in Germany, where an Air France Concorde and a Tupolev Tu-144 are accessible to visitors.
As for whether Concorde could have kept flying past 2003, it’s possible. The flight rate would have meant the airframe was still in good condition at the time of retirement. However, despite interest from the likes of Richard Branson, the remaining aircraft break the sound barrier again.
Concorde entered service just as confidence in mass supersonic travel was already fading. Despite decades of interest in reviving the idea, no successor has yet made it back into commercial service. ®
