<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by apudme:
One of the Concorde's key time savings was the fact it had taxiway priority to the runway, was allowed a direct approach and only boarded a comparatively few 100 pax, and had priority baggage handling.
So a 20 hour flight could become 19, 18, 17 hours, by looking not only at the flight time itself, but the ground time as well, such is progress!</font>
As far as I know Concorde didn't receive priority taxiing at LHR. Perhaps some other BA a/c gave up their place in the queue to their flagship but certainly ATC wouldn't have done. Concorde generally flew the same approach pattern as other aircraft. True ground service was very fast.
What made Concorde journey times so quick was the sheer speed of the plane in the air!
On the issue of reducing flight times from 20 hours down to 19,18, 17 etc. Don't forget that 20 hours was an airborne time I suggested for LHR-SYD flying in a great circle straight line. If you added ground services, boarding, disembarking, taxiing you are looking at more like 23 hours.