Originally Posted by
Nicksta
Now the bigger issue is that the 747-400 carries perhaps 350 passengers/crew while Concorde carried perhaps 110.
Concorde always had exactly 100 seats. There were talks of 108, or 128, but those never realized. Oh, and a crew of 9 (3 in cockpit, IIRC 6 in cabin)
747-400 may carry 350 seats, but those are mostly coach. If you attempted to fill a 747-400 with first class seats... Well, SQ A340-500s are all business, and have exactly 100 seats. Maxjet and Silverjet 767-200s were all business and also had exactly 100 seats.
If you try to fill a 747-400 with BA First? Fully flat pitch? All beds with aisle access? On the upper deck you could find space for perhaps 8 seats. I do not think that a 747 is big enough for 100 first class seats.
Observe that BA chose to bail out LŽAvion, not Silverjet. And their own planes are even smaller - Openskies was 82 shrunk to 64, and the Concorde replacement has 32 seats.
Maybe Concorde was always too big. BA should enter an order with JAXA for a 30 seat SST, as described here:
http://www.apg.jaxa.jp/info/prm/006/01.html