British Airways’ last Concorde flight for fare-paying passengers landed in New York, marking a bitter-sweet end to a great chapter in aviation history.

Concorde will bow out in style tomorrow with celebrity guests enjoying a champagne breakfast on board the supersonic passenger plane’s last flight.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to pack Heathrow airport to watch the final flight of Concorde, following unprecedented interest in the aircraft’s retirement, it was revealed today.

Barbados was bidding farewell to Concorde today with the Caribbean island’s last British Airways supersonic flight departing for London.

BRITISH Airways turned in a pre-tax profit of £25m for the three months to December 31 and said in the absence of war in the Mideast it expects this year to be profitable.

Although British Airways beat forecasts for its first-quarter earnings yesterday due to the strict implementation of its cost cutting programme, shares fell 10p to stg£1.40 on the FTSE, a drop of 6.6%.

British Airways has posted third quarter pre-tax losses of £160m (€263m) - not as bad as the market was expecting.

Virgin Atlantic boss Richard Branson today claimed victory over arch rival British Airways in his bid to prove that transatlantic slots are not readily available at Heathrow.

British Airways will report on a catastrophic half year in which it has cut 7,200 jobs and lost 25% of its passengers.

The number of passengers travelling on British Airways has fallen by up to 25% following the US terror attacks.

The British Government was today being urged to launch an advertising campaign encouraging people to fly to help stem job losses in the beleaguered aviation industry.