Is There a Concorde in Our Future?

A very special aircraft, a technological marvel, is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary of service in the United States. It has never delivered a passenger to the West Coast.

It is the 1,350-m.p.h. Concorde, the world’s first supersonic jetliner. No more than a handful of the French/British-manufactured aircraft are in service and no more are being built.

The Concorde, besides being the fastest passenger plane ever created, was also the most controversial.

It took Air France and British Airways two years to win court approval to bring the machine to Washington, D.C., and New York. The Concorde inspired awe for its technical achievement . . . and fear of the effects of that achievement on the environment and on innocent bystanders.

The engines that propel the needle-nosed craft through the sky at twice the speed of sound are dirty, some opponents argued in and out of court. The Concorde can be guaranteed to foul up the air, they said. And there was the noise threat.

Graphic Word Pictures

Anti-Concorders painted graphic word pictures of what would happen on land as the supersonic transport went through the sound barrier above. The boom would smash windows and frighten babies, they warned.

Long Island hens would stop laying and Oklahoma cows would give no milk. Citizens in Omaha and Denver would be rudely aroused from their slumber and California dogs would take to howling.

In short, they said, the Concorde would be a rotten machine to have overhead.

The environmental and noise-abatement groups laid all of their “facts” before the court. They didn’t want the plane anywhere in the United States, period. Not even in the Eastern Seaboard states, where overland flying would be kept to a minimum--and to subsonic speeds--at the end of Atlantic crossings.

In the end, the judiciary rejected some of the arguments and permitted the national carriers of the countries involved in the design and construction of the plane to fly it into New York and Washington. But special flight rules were instituted for Concorde operators.

Cost Inefficiencies

The first commercial flight of Concorde, early in 1976, was between Paris and Rio de Janiero. Washington service didn’t begin until May of that year and it was 18 months later before New York was added to the schedule.

Because of the impracticability and the cost inefficiencies inherent in flying the 100-passenger plane across the United States at normal aircraft speeds, and because no Pacific carrier has shown any interest in the equipment, there never has been Concorde service into Los Angeles, or any other West Coast city.

The reason is economics. Most of the world’s airlines don’t see how Concorde, with its small seat capacity and high operating cost, can be profitable in regular service at any speed.

Air France and British Airways, of course, are flying the plane because their governments spent billions of dollars in developing the thing and, after all, somebody had to use it. But even they were not convinced.

Ironically, both are making money out of Concorde operations--Air France about $25 million since 1983 and British Airways even more, including $18 million in 1984 and about as much last year. They are making money partly because oil prices have come down.

The engines do burn a lot of fuel. Had oil rates continued to soar, as they did a few years ago, the two airlines could certainly have budgeted for more of the heavy losses they realized on Concorde in the early days.

Price of National Pride

They might even have had to lay up the planes as totally uneconomical, in spite of national pride.

The other reason they’re in the black is that they are the only companies offering supersonic service to a relatively small market. Had the plane been bought by enough other airlines, the manufacturers would have recouped some of their losses, but the Mach 2 fare wars, the same wars that hurt operators of conventional aircraft, would have eliminated any possibility Concorde had of being profitable.

As it is, since the passengers’ options are so limited, BA and Air France can get a premium over the first-class fares charged by other transatlantic carriers.

Concorde is not a cheap ride. Nor, surprising as it may seem, is it a particularly different or dramatic one.

There is no obvious sensation of flying at twice the speed of sound. In fact, I overheard one industry observer, sampling Concorde for the first time, tell his seatmate: “This plane is fantastic. If you close your eyes you’d swear you were flying on a 707.”

He may be right. The real wonder of Concorde, magnificent as it and its amenities are, is not realized in the air. It dawns only after you leave the plane in London and know that a little more than three hours ago you were in New York.

You arrive fresh and ready for business or pleasure.

Russian Version a Mystery

The Russians built a supersonic plane as well. But it had some difficulties and is not believed ever to have carried passengers commercially.

Will there ever be a U.S. version? Bet on it.

Aircraft manufacturers here have done the paper work. They have a host of plans, or at least, options, drawn up.

If they put their minds to it, they could be in production in months, rather than years. But with what?

The trouble is that what they could produce probably wouldn’t be able to carry the right number of passengers, over the right segment lengths, any more cost-efficiently than Concorde has done. And environmentalists would still be a stumbling block to introduction of the U.S.-made supersonic airplane.

But some day there will be a technological breakthrough, or a design innovation, that will make a Mach 2 (or better) jet economical and acceptable over land. When that happens, watch out.

Fewer than 20 Concordes were sold. That number will be seen as a drop in the bucket when Boeing, McDonnell Douglas et al get their act together.