Why is Concord out ?

[Boris_G]

Many officials say that Concorde is not gonna fly no more cuz its been crashing alott ,but 747 crash at least 2-3 times eahyear no one putting them out of service??
Or do they realy try to say that Concorde is small and cant carrhy anough enough passengers for such price ??

[Oz]

its not about the crashes. The Concorde is very expensive to operate. maintenance costs are very high especialy these days. also, the ticket prices are too high. But still it was a magnificent aircraft. Anyone heard if Virgin Atlantic is gonna buy some?

[Hagar]

Or do they realy try to say that Concorde is small and cant carrhy anough enough passengers for such price ??

That's about it. Concorde was never really viable although it did make some profit after previous heavy losses were written off. The Paris crash caused a loss of confidence from the traditional wealthy passengers & was the final nail in the coffin.

[Hagar]

Anyone heard if Virgin Atlantic is gonna buy some?

I don't think this was ever likely to happen. BA & Virgin hate one another's guts. BA would do almost anything to prevent it. IMHO

[emh8]

Perhaps one of our members in the UK can help me out on this, but my understanding is that the decision on whether or not concourde service continues to Great Britain actually lies with Parliament.  If service is to be continued with Parliament backing($$), then they (Parliament) would oversee transfer of the service to the lowest bidder.  In this case there may just be one bidder - Richard Branson.

[Paz]

747 crash at least 2-3 times each year

 Is this true?

[zcottovision]

I'm not sure it does lie with Parliament - I just think that BA are now making a continual loss with the plane, and this is why they're retiring it. I don't think they're selling them, either - I think they'll just do what Air France are doing and put them off to museums, or something.

[Hagar]

To the best of my knowledge the aircraft belong to BA & Air France. The BA Concordes were sold to them for just

[FSTipster]

Hagar is absolutely right.

The government's involvement with Concorde ended when they offloaded them to BA at the aformentioned price of

[Rifleman]

So bottom line is ....................

                      .......................................

                                     ..........................................

as usual...............................MONEY !

[FSTipster]

I think you can safely say it's been a long time since it was anything else.

The depression in the aviation industry as a whole hasn't helped but it would seem that running a "flagship" aircraft for pure prestige value just isn;t cost effective any more.

At over

[Craig.]

ok simply put branson went to the government asking for help but as they said, once BA went private it became none of their business and branson was on his own. i dont know what this crashing all the time is about, one crash, and a few incidents.
the other problem is Airbus, air france went to them and said they couldnt afford the parts anymore and that the parts they had were becoming less and less, it got to a point where BA had to give AF a few of their rudders, and now need them back to keep concorde flying till oct. airbus then decided after AF pulled out of the deal to stop supplying the parts to BA because it wouldnt have been an affordable option, as it has always been known it needed two companys to keep it flying. the whole concorde being bought for

[Hagar]

I'm not sure why you all seem to dislike Richard Branson so much. OK, he's an entrepreneur but also a highly successful businessman. BA did their best to destroy all competion when the smaller airlines first started threatening them. This was quite ruthless & with a combination of underhand tricks & untruths in their advertisng they succeeded in forcing Laker Airways out of business. http://airlines.afriqonline.com/airlines/781.htm

This was later proven in court but didn't help the hundreds of people, some of my friends among them, who lost their jobs as a result. The ruthlessness of the then BA management is comparable with the way M$ operate. Good luck to Branson & others like him I say..........!

[Craig.]

i dislike branson so much because he doesnt have a clue what he is really doing, his trains are among the worst on the rails, his planes arnt exactly great either,  and yet the money he could use improving these things is being spent on islands for his employees and a new toys for himself. when stars have been abusive to his staff on his planes or just being a nuscience, he doesnt bring about legal action like he should, he goes around saying, oh well they are welcome on my planes anytime they want. he is a pompus assh**e in my opinion

[Hagar]

Craig. You are entitled to your opinion as I am to mine.
I prefer competition to monopolies any time.