Overhauled Concorde Jet Is Set to Fly Again
As airlines worldwide slash schedules, lay off thousands of workers and ground hundreds of jets because of the slump in air travel, one airplane that was widely considered doomed is poised to fly again: the supersonic Concorde.
The two carriers that operate the exotic, bird-shaped jet--British Airways and Air France--both plan to resume its service within the next few weeks after a 14-month hiatus. Their Concorde fleets have been grounded ever since the fiery crash of an Air France Concorde outside Paris on July 25, 2000, which killed more than 100 people.
Yet the airlines are bringing the Concorde back even as they, along with the rest of the airline industry, are massively scaling down their other operations to adapt to the plunge in air travel after the terrorist attacks last month.
“We’re going ahead with it because there is still definitely a market waiting for it to come back,” British Airways Chairman Colin Marshall said during a visit to Southern California last week.
The carriers have performed multimillion-dollar modifications of their Concordes in response to the Paris accident, and both recently received clearance from British and French authorities to resume service. The airlines are expected to announce their new Concorde schedules and begin taking reservations as early as today.
British Airways plans to resume its service between New York’s Kennedy airport and London with one round-trip flight per day, a flight that takes less than four hours, compared with the six or seven hours it takes conventional jetliners to fly the Atlantic.
Traveling at more than twice the speed of sound, the 100-seat British Airways Concorde is expected to leave London at about 10:30 a.m. and arrive in New York more than an hour earlier than when it took off--about 9:25 a.m., airline spokesman John Lampl said.
The plane would leave New York each day shortly after noon and arrive in London around 8 p.m. The exact flight schedule hasn’t yet been announced.
None of this was expected under the scenarios forecast by some analysts. After the Concorde was grounded, they said the plane would never fly again because it has a 1960s-era design, accounts for a small portion of the airlines’ overall business, at best breaks even financially and wouldn’t be worth the price of the modifications needed to get it airborne again.
Although British Airways and Air France said before Sept. 11 that they planned to resume Concorde service, the jet’s future was doubted again after the terrorist attacks caused a worldwide airline crisis, forcing the carriers to scale back operations.
Yet here comes the Concorde anyway. “We think it will give a boost to the airline itself, both internally and externally [among travelers], and a boost to the people of New York and London,” Marshall said.
British Airways is spending $6.3 million per Concorde to bolster the plane’s safety and upgrade its interiors. At the same time, the carrier, Europe’s biggest, is firing 7,000 employees as a result of the sudden downturn in air travel since Sept. 11. The airline’s U.S. shares are down 57% this year.
British Airways contends that any other airplane is simply too slow for Concorde’s well-heeled fans, and that they’re more than ready to jump back aboard and maintain the jet’s viability.
The airline has been in constant touch with its Concorde frequent fliers to keep them abreast of the airline’s progress. It’s also held meetings in London and New York with those customers, along with corporate travel planners, to provide updates on the plane’s return.
“You have a certain segment, albeit small, of the business and entertainment communities for whom money on this trip is not an object,” Lampl said. The one-way fare on the Concorde flight New York London was about $6,100. The new fare won’t be posted until the flight schedule is announced.
From 75% to 80% of Concorde’s passengers are repeat customers, and for them “time is definitely money,” he said. “There are bankers that go back and forth all the time on the Concorde, and this gives them an easier lifestyle because they can spend more time with their families without the hassle of traveling overnight.”
And although the airline doesn’t release the Concorde’s financial results, it contends that the airplane turns a profit, though its only other planned destination besides New York and London is Barbados.
The Concorde also was used for a few charter flights each year, but those probably won’t be resumed for a year, Lampl said.
The ill-fated Air France Concorde caught fire as it charged down the runway at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport after one of its tires burst, sending chunks of rubber smashing into its fuel tanks under the wings.
The Concorde’s safety overhaul includes three main changes: installing stronger fuel-tank liners, beefing up protection of the plane’s underwing wiring and putting stronger tires on the aircraft.
