Concorde begins final descent after 27 years

THE Concorde began its final descent yesterday as British Airways and Air France said they would stop flying the world’s first and only supersonic jetliner because flagging passenger demand could not cover its rising costs.

The decision to retire the slender, needle-nosed jet to museums after 27 years of service brings down a potent symbol of Franco-British engineering prowess and the jet-set lifestyles of the rich and famous who flew on Concorde. “Concorde changed the way people travelled,” British Airways Chief Executive Rod Eddington told reporters yesterday. “With its going, we must lose some of the romance from aviation.”

But the costs associated with the fuel-guzzling jet had become too onerous for the only two airlines that fly the 100-seat plane. Both carriers said falling revenues and rising maintenance costs was behind their decision.

Air France, Europe’s second-largest airline, said it was halting Concorde flights from May 31, while British Airways, Europe’s biggest airline, said it would stop commercial flights in the days leading up to the end of October. The plane’s demise comes nearly three years after the crash of an Air France Concorde shortly after take-off from Roissy Charles De Gaulle airport near Paris in July 2000.

The crash, which killed 113 people, forced both airlines to ground the planes for more than a year.

When they resumed transatlantic service in November 2001, the global economy was slowing and the civil aerospace market heading into its worst-ever downturn following the September 11 attacks. Although the Concorde has always been linked in the public eye to champagne-quaffing, lobster-dining celebrities with money to spare, the reality is much different.

Eddington said more than two-thirds of Concorde’s passengers were business travellers. Falling stock markets, a drought in mergers and acquisitions and weak economies have forced City of London and Wall Street banks to cut tens of thousands of jobs and even high-flying CEOs to rein in their outlays. “Recently, we were filling only about 20% of the seats,” Air France chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta told a news conference.