Concorde gets ready for new home

The last but one Concorde flight will leave Heathrow bound for Barbados tomorrow with 70 invited British Airways staff on board.

The supersonic plane, which regularly flew on the London-Barbados route, is being flown to the Caribbean island so it can permanently reside at Grantley Adams airport.

The very final flight Concorde will make will be on November 26 when Concorde chief pilot Mike Bannister takes the supersonic plane from Heathrow, via the Bay of Biscay, to Filton in Bristol, where the aircraft was made and where this particular plane will be housed.

The Filton flight, following the Barbados one, will mean that five of BA’s seven Concordes will have been flown to their new homes. The other homes to which the supersonic planes have been taken are the US cities of Seattle and New York and Manchester Airport.

The remaining two BA Concordes have not flown since the Air France Concorde crash in July 2000 which claimed 113 lives.

One of these will remain at Heathrow and will probably go on show at the airport’s Terminal 5 when it is completed. The other will be taken either by road or by barge to the Scotland Museum of Flight in Edinburgh.

All the planes are being preserved intact but, on December 1, Concorde enthusiasts will be able to bid for bits of the aircraft which have been spares.

Auctioneers Bonhams are putting more than 120 lots up for sale at the Olympia exhibition centre in west London.