Concorde began scheduled flights with British Airways (BA) and Air France (AF) on 21 January 1976. AF flew its last commercial flight on 31 May 2003 with BA retiring its Concorde fleet on 24 October 2003.
Concorde 001 solar eclipse mission
Concorde 001 was modified with rooftop portholes and equipped with observation instruments for use during the solar eclipse of June 30, 1973. It performed the longest observation of a solar eclipse to date, about 74 minutes.
Scheduled flights
Scheduled flights began on 21 January 1976 on the London–Bahrain and Paris–Rio de Janeiro (via Dakar) routes, with BA flights using the Speedbird Concorde call sign to notify air traffic control of the aircraft's unique abilities and restrictions, but the French using their normal call signs. The Paris-Caracas route (via Azores) began on 10 April. The US Congress had just banned Concorde landings in the US, mainly due to citizen protest over sonic booms, preventing launch on the coveted North Atlantic routes. The US Secretary of Transportation, William Coleman, gave permission for Concorde service to Dulles International Airport, and Air France and British Airways simultaneously began a thrice-weekly service to Dulles on 24 May 1976. Due to low demand, AF cancelled its Washington service in October 1982, while BA cancelled it in November 1994.
When the US ban on JFK Concorde operations was lifted in February 1977, New York banned Concorde locally. The ban came to an end on 17 October 1977 when the Supreme Court of the United States declined to overturn a lower court's ruling rejecting efforts by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a grass-roots campaign led by Carol Berman to continue the ban. Despite complaints about noise, the report noted that Air Force One, at the time a Boeing VC-137, was louder than Concorde at subsonic speeds and during takeoff and landing. Scheduled service from Paris and London to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport began on 22 November 1977.
In December 1977, BA and Singapore Airlines started sharing a Concorde for flights between London and Singapore International Airport at Paya Lebar via Bahrain. The aircraft, BA's Concorde G-BOAD, was painted in Singapore Airlines livery on the left side and BA livery on the right side. The service was discontinued after three return flights because of noise complaints from the Malaysian government; it could only be reinstated on a new route bypassing Malaysian airspace in 1979. A dispute with India prevented Concorde from reaching supersonic speeds in Indian airspace, so the route was eventually declared not viable and discontinued in 1980.
During the Mexican oil boom, AF flew Concorde twice weekly to Mexico City's Mexico City International Airport via Washington, DC, or New York City, from September 1978 to November 1982. The worldwide economic crisis during that period resulted in this route's cancellation; the last flights were almost empty. The routing between Washington or New York and Mexico City included a deceleration, from Mach 2.02 to Mach 0.95, to cross Florida subsonically and avoid creating a sonic boom over the state; Concorde then re-accelerated back to high speed while crossing the Gulf of Mexico. On 1 April 1989, on an around-the-world luxury tour charter, BA implemented changes to this routing that allowed G-BOAF to maintain Mach 2.02 by passing around Florida to the east and south. Periodically Concorde visited the region on similar chartered flights to Mexico City and Acapulco.
From December 1978 to May 1980, Braniff International Airways leased 11 Concordes, five from AF and six from BA. These were used on subsonic flights between Dallas–Fort Worth and Dulles International Airport, flown by Braniff flight crews. AF and BA crews then took over for the continuing supersonic flights to London and Paris. The aircraft were registered in both the United States and their home countries; the European registration was covered while being operated by Braniff, retaining full AF/BA liveries. The flights were not profitable and typically less than 50% booked, forcing Braniff to end its tenure as the only US Concorde operator in May 1980.
In its early years, BA's Concorde service had a greater number of "no-shows" (passengers who booked a flight and then failed to appear at the gate for boarding) than any other aircraft in the fleet.Allen, Roy, "Concorde The Magnificent," Airliner Classics, July 2012, p. 63.
British Caledonian interest Following the launch of British Airways Concorde services, Britain's other major airline, British Caledonian (BCal), set up a task force headed by Gordon Davidson, BA's former Concorde director, to investigate the possibility of their own Concorde operations."B.CAL appoints Concorde consultant". Flight International, 24 March 1979, p. 881."Caledonian reports best results". Flight International, 12 May 1979, p. 1547."New job for B.CAL Concorde man". Flight International, 21 July 1979, p. 158. This was seen as particularly viable for the airline's long-haul network as there were two unsold aircraft then available for purchase."B.CAL to lease unsold Concorde?". Flight International, 24 February 1979, p. 517."Tories support B.CAL's Concorde plan". Flight International, 14 April 1979, p. 1132.World News. Flight International, 28 April 1979, p. 1286.
One important reason for BCal's interest in Concorde was that the British Government's 1976 aviation policy review had opened the possibility of BA setting up supersonic services in competition with BCal's established sphere of influence. To counteract this potential threat, BCal considered their own independent Concorde plans, as well as a partnership with BA. BCal were considered most likely to have set up a Concorde service on the Gatwick–Lagos route, a major source of revenue and profits within BCal's scheduled route network;"The Caledonian punchbag", Flight International, 21 March 1987, p. 33. BCal's Concorde task force did assess the viability of a daily supersonic service complementing the existing subsonic widebody service on this route.
BCal entered into a bid to acquire at least one Concorde. However, BCal eventually arranged for two aircraft to be leased from BA and Aérospatiale respectively, to be maintained by either BA or AF. BCal's envisaged two-Concorde fleet would have required a high level of aircraft usage to be cost-effective; therefore, BCal had decided to operate the second aircraft on a supersonic service between Gatwick and Atlanta, with a stopover at either Gander or Halifax. Consideration was given to services to Houston and various points on its South American network at a later stage. Both supersonic services were to be launched at some point during 1980; however, steeply rising oil prices caused by the 1979 energy crisis led to BCal shelving their supersonic ambitions.
British Airways buys its Concordes outright By around 1981 in the UK, the future for Concorde looked bleak. The British government had lost money operating Concorde every year, and moves were afoot to cancel the service entirely. A cost projection came back with greatly reduced metallurgical testing costs because the test rig for the wings had built up enough data to last for 30 years and could be shut down. Despite this, the government was not keen to continue. In 1983, BA's managing director, Sir John King, convinced the government to sell the aircraft outright to the then state-owned British Airways for £ plus the first year's profits. In 2003, in a radio interview with Alan Robb on BBC Radio 5 Live, Lord Heseltine, the minister then responsible, acknowledged that the plane was sold "next to nothing" and agreed the deal was among the most disastrous conducted by a government minister; "but if you have your hands tied behind your back and no cards and a very skilful negotiator on the other side of the table... I defy you to do any [better]."
Operating economics Its estimated operating costs were $3,800 per block hour in 1972 (), compared to actual 1971 operating costs of $1,835 for a 707 and $3,500 for a 747 (equivalent to $ and $, respectively); for a London–New York sector, a 707 cost $13,750 or 3.04¢ per seat/nmi (in 1971 dollars), a 747 $26,200 or 2.4¢ per seat/nmi and Concorde $14,250 or 4.5¢ per seat/nmi. On a transatlantic flight, having a cruising speed of more than double a B-707, Concorde required less than half the number of block hours per trip. This illustrates that these two aircraft types were designed for entirely different flight regimes (subsonic versus supersonic) and different markets, so a direct comparison is not possible. A more direct operating cost per seat mile would be against a subsonic first class seat while factoring twice the flight time as a cost increasing component.
In 1983, Pan Am accused the British Government of subsidising BA Concorde air fares, on which a return London–New York was £2,399 (£ in prices), compared to £1,986 (£) with a subsonic first class return, and London–Washington return was £2,426 (£) instead of £2,258 (£) subsonic. However, by this time, Concorde was operating in its own P&L division with no subsidy available to it.
Concorde's unit cost was then $33.8 million ($ in dollars). BA and AF benefited from a significantly reduced purchase price from the manufacturing consortium via their respective governments.
After six years of on and off profitability, in 1982 Concorde was established in its own operating division (Concorde Division) under Capt. Brian Walpole and Capt. Jock Lowe. Their research revealed that regular passengers thought that the fare was higher than it actually was (business travellers were the majority of passengers), so the airline raised ticket prices to match these perceptions and, following the marketing research and repositioning, Concorde ran profitably for BA. The ticket price was pitched about 10–15% above subsonic first class (1996 £4,772 versus subsonic first class £4,314) adding to its corporate appeal and ensuring loyalty from regular users which brought regular load factors of around 80%. New Design Concepts for High Speed Air Transport edited by H. Sobieczky (1997) p. 2
Over the next twenty years, BA's Concordes earned over half a billion pounds in profit with (typically) just five aircraft operating and two in various maintenance cycles.
Special flights to East Germany
Air France and Interflug shared the same office building in Paris in the 1980s. Due to their socialistic persuasions, both of them developed kinships for each other. The Air France staff proposed limited Concorde service to Leipzig during the Leipziger Buchmesse (Leipzig book fair), carrying business people. The East German government agreed to allow the Concorde flights to Leipzig and made the special accommodations for the “friendship flights”. Klaus Henkes, the deputy transport minister and the former general director of Interflug, was one of the most powerful East German governmental officials, and he made the quick arrangements and granted the special flight certificate for the Concorde flights within East Germany.
The Yalta Conference of 1945 stipulated a lot of restrictions about flying over East Germany to Berlin (West) from West Germany. Additionally, the stipulations did not allow the Allies-designated airways such as Air France to divert from one of three corridors to other aeroports in East Germany. Instead, Concorde entered East Germany from the Baltic Sea via Denmark.
Mr Henkes also allowed the Concorde to fly at Mach 1.5 over East Germany prior to arrival at Leipzig aeroport during its first flight as this specific route was designated as military flight practice with fighters flying at supersonic speed. The overland speed record by the passenger aeroplane over the European land remains unbroken to this day.