BlackBat242
OK, I changed my personal text ;)
- Joined
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How so (asking honestly for a very dear and close friend of mine, because Concorde is near and dear to his [my friend, that is ] heart...)?
The British & French had placed most of the profitability of Concorde in supersonic flights to Chicago. LA. etc... not just to New York City, Washington D.C., and other US east-coast cities.
At one point in the mid-1960s the consortium received orders, i.e., non-binding options, for more than 100 of the long-range versions from the major airlines of the day: Pan Am, BOAC, and Air France were the launch customers, with six Concordes each. Other airlines in the order book included Panair do Brasil, Continental Airlines, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, American Airlines, United Airlines, Air India, Air Canada, Braniff, Singapore Airlines, Iran Air, Olympic Airways, Qantas, CAAC Airlines, Middle East Airlines, and TWA. At the time of the first flight the options list contained 74 options from 16 airlines.
The US FAA placed restrictions on Concorde's supersonic flight paths "due to the probability of broken windows etc from sonic "booms" and effects on wildlife".
Specifically, it banned Concorde from supersonic flight flight over ANY US land... so flying to inland or west-coast cities would be at subsonic speeds once the US coast or border was crossed. The longer flight times that would result would make such flights much less attractive considering the high cost of tickets and the impact on the primary draw of "short flight times" that Concorde's economic case was based on.
By 1976 the remaining buyers were from four countries: Britain, France, China, and Iran. Only Air France and British Airways (the successor to BOAC) took up their orders, eventually buying 7 each - with the two governments taking a cut of any profits made.
Very quickly Concorde only flew to NYC & DC, and nowhere else in the US.
This reduced the number of flights from early estimates, thus reducing the number of aircraft built to provide those flights... driving the individual aircraft costs up, which drove ticket costs up to cover the higher equipment costs... which further reduced ticket sales.
You see where this is going.
For British Airways and Air France the agreement was not as "satisfying" as Archibald implies.
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