--Concorde @ 40 1969-2009--

London April 10, 2003: British Airways announced today the retirement of its Concorde fleet of seven aircraft with effect from the end of October 2003.

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The airline said that its decision had been made for commercial reasons with passenger revenue falling steadily against a backdrop of rising maintenance costs for the aircraft.

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The Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde aircraft

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Is a supersonic passenger airliner or supersonic transport (SST). It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and British Aircraft Corporation. First flown in 1969, Concorde entered service in 1976 and continued for 27 years.

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Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, profitably flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners. Concorde also set many other records, including the official FAI "Westbound Around the World" and ""Eastbound Around the World world air speed records.

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Concorde was the more successful of the only two supersonic airliners to have ever operated commercially, the Tupolev Tu-144 being the other. The Tu-144 was nicknamed "Concordski" by Western Europeans for its outward similarity to the Concorde, having flown first, having a higher maximum speed, but required more fuel and had less range than Concorde. It has been frequently suggested that through Soviet espionage efforts, Concorde blueprints were stolen to develop the Tu-144.

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With only 20 aircraft ultimately built, the costly development phase represented a substantial economic loss. Additionally, Air France and British Airways were subsidised by their governments to buy the aircraft. As a result of the type's only crash (on 25 July 2000), world economic effects arising from the 9/11 attacks, and other factors, operations ceased on 24 October 2003. The last "retirement" flight occurred on 26 November 2003.

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Concorde remains an icon of aviation history, and has acquired an unusual nomenclature for an aircraft. In common usage in the United Kingdom, the type is known as "Concorde" rather than "the Concorde" or "a Concorde".

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~http://www.concordesst.com/retire/announcements.html

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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde