Dr. Zhivago

With all the doom and gloom about Concorde, I wonder if BA/AF might not keep one or two mothballed for VIP services/charters etc.?

Seems to me the maintenance costs would be lower, because that would remove the need to always have one on standby for scheduled flights.

ExtrAAordinaire

From the "Questions and Answers" section of BA.com:

"Will Concorde ever come out of retirement - e.g. for a Coronation flypast or airshows?

"No, as it would be too costly to maintain for occasional use."

Dr. Zhivago

That may well be, but I'd still wager we will see her fly again post-October. One day.

Leumas

I agree, the Concorde will fly again after retirement... One day...

Never say never... (Technically, they didn't say 'never'...)

ScottC

Somehow I think Airbus Industrie will have a new supersonic plane in the air within 10 years, the Americans couldn't do it back then, they won't do it now (The Sonic Cruiser has been scrapped) so it's up to Airbus to do it. BA and AF proved that there is a (niche) market for supersonic travel...

azmmza

not any more

ozzie

Yes - but with modern technology, surely they could make it far more efficient and make the budgets balance a little better....

JohnG

AFAIK, the concorde program never turned a profit. The development costs were immmense and given that only around 14 aircraft were ever in service it was impossible to ever recover the investment.Given the dire straits airlines are in, such a "loss leader" had to go...

Still, terribly sad to see her grounded....

B Watson

That will be a trick if the JAA revokes its airworthiness certificate, which would happen without an approved JAA maintenance plan, which apparently will not exist after Oct.

AC*SE

Not a chance. All 12 airframes are being donated to museums.

As for new development--I don't see any prospect for supersonic transport. The economics of the industry are based on volume and range, not speed.

Jenbel

Even Boeings new Sonic Cruiser would only take an hour off LHR-LAX according to the blurb at Farnborough last year (before they admitted there was no way it would be flying at the same time as the A380).

fredl

Of course there will be another means of commercial supersonic travel in the future. Given that Boeing has painted themselves into a corner, it will be coming from other manufacturers.

I saw a documentary discussing this very issue on Discovery the other week.

samsp99

There was a good documentry on the development of Concord and the TUV copy. It ended with NASA buying the last Concordski to use as a test plane for supersonic travel. They wanted to do more experiments, I think in conjunction with Boeing on supersonic jet-liners. That may have been a pre-cursor to the sonic cruiser, as the documentry was on a while ago, but I would not be surprised if nasa and the like continue research.

ScottC

But wasn't the whole "sonic cruiser" thing a big PR stunt by Boeing to take the attention away from Airbus and the A380?

CoMooter

The A380 and sonic cruiser were/are BOTH PR stunts IMHO.

Since Boeing actually needs to make a profit on the a/c it sells (something that has never been much of a concern to the Airbus consortium) it rightly backed off the sonic cruiser when all airlines looked at the seat costs #'s and just couldn't see who they could make a profit on the airplane.

Instead Boeing is now using VERY advanced technology to design an aircraft in the 767 size range (the project is known as the 7E7 at the moment) with very efficient seat mile costs because they know there will be a market to replace all of those A300/A310 & 767 a/c over the next 20-25 years.

Airbus has instead, bet the 'house' (or at least their respective government's 'house', considering that they are underwriting the development - and they will take the 'bath' if it fails) that they can sell at least 350 (or more depending on how sweet they have to make future deals) of these planes over the next 10 years.

Don't get me wrong, the A380 is a marvelous technological achievement (there is a great article in ATW this month about the A380's overcome technical hurdles) - I just have doubts whether there is a sufficient market for a plane of this size in the worldwide market. Boeing did too - hence the reason they were not willing to go farther than offering another update to a forty year old airframe design.

There are still only orders for 95 (25 to LH & AF) of these planes at 'giveaway' rates with very liberal buy-back/escape terms rumored on many of positions.

In (another) ominous sign for this aircraft's market potential, Airbus just lost a huge order this last week to ANA who instead will just opt for smaller 773's.


[This message has been edited by CoMooter (edited 04-12-2003).]