Farewell Concorde

From BBC News:

British Airways and Air France made simultaneous announcements that they would be permanently grounding the famous supersonic airliners this year.

Passenger numbers have never recovered since the crash near Paris in 2000 and the aircraft no longer makes a profit.

In a statement, BA said Concorde would cease flying in the autumn because of "commercial reasons, with passenger revenue falling steadily against a backdrop of rising maintenance costs for the aircraft".

Living and working under the Heathrow flightpath from many years meant Concorde was an everyday sight for me. I remember the first commercial flight, when I was still at school, and the teachers marched us all out into the school playing field to watch it pass over. The first flights were not to New York, but to Bahrain; At the time the American authorities refused to allow Concorde to fly to America on envionmental grounds (Or was it that it wasn't built in America?)

While small size of the fleet meant the planes never recovered the massive development costs, they were still a great source of national pride. It will be sad to see them go.

I expect most if not all the Concordes to be be preserved in aircraft museums in Britain and France, and I hope at least one in kept in working order.