Why This Supersonic Plane Will Never Work - Concorde

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The Concorde was going to change the way we fly.
But the Concorde actually had far more orders beyond the two carriers British Airways and Air France.
Who were these other airlines, where would they have flown the plane and why did these deliveries never happen?

On a brisk winter morning in 1972, the Concorde and the future had arrived down under. Officials at Qantas lined up, to place at this point a no brainer order.

So far the plane had been ordered by both British Airways and Air France, whose parent countries had spent billions developing the Concorde. But no other airline had managed yet to receive the aircraft. Both airlines had 7 aircraft each.

The first option agreement after these two airlines was Pan Am, who optioned six aircraft in 1963, and then optioned another two in 1966. Pan Am would have used these like Air France and BA to cross to Europe over the ocean.

Contential followed with an option for three, as well as TWA who optioned six. American Airlines also had options, for six aircraft but seemingly only after Rival Pan Am made the first move.

Near the end of the first year, middle eastern carrier MEA optioned four aircraft from France. They would operate the plane from Beruit to New York, landing in Toulouse - and a two hour trip to London.

In 1964, Qantas would option four aircraft. they would have used the plane for flights over the outback to Singapore.

Air India with two options
Japan Airlines with three.
Eastern airlines with 8 options,
United with 6
Braniff with 3
Lufthansa with 3
Sabena with 2
Air Canada with 4
There was also an option for three aircraft from the Chinese government.
FedEx with a fleet of ten aircraft.
The last airline that had options for the Concorde was Iran Air.

It seemed that the Concorde dream was in full swing, with 44 options across 10 airlines, short of the 150 needed for the program to break even, but a good start.

In 1973, rising oil prices led to the Concorde becoming increasingly unprofitable, and the sonic boom became a political football. The plane was also growing too expensive, its price going $20 million US to $60 million US, $349 million today.

This led launch customer Pan Am to cancel. The carrier wasn't doing well at the time, and it wasn't able to secure finance to go forward with the orders if it wanted to.

American Airlines, Continental, United Airlines and Air Canada TWA, and Braniff would follow suit.

Sir George Edwards, chairman of British Aircraft Corp, which along with France’s Aerospatiale was building the Concorde: “We should not describe this as a fatal blow, but it’s a hell of a setback.”

Japan not ordering it, China canceled.

Boeing and others like Russia were working on their own version of the Concorde, the Boeing 2707, dubbed the second-generation supersonic jet, that would deal with the issues with a sonic boom and also have much better performance.

The Qantas order for four supersonic jets is still on the books. Although we all know that will never happen. Qantas would go on to instead buy 747s for its pacific aspirations.

The Concorde would go on to serve a unique slice of the market through carrier British Airways and Air France. It would be rented by the carriers above for special routes now and again, like Singapore who would even paint half of the plane operating it across Asia. , as well as Pepsi - yes the soft drink, who would use the plane as a promotional billboard.

In 2003, Richard Branson tried to acquire the Concorde jets from British Airways following the crash of Air France 4590 and the downturn of the aviation industry following 9/11.

He claimed that a special requirement in British Airways’ privatization agreement back in the 80s said that “if BA no longer wanted Concorde, then another British airline should be allowed to operate the supersonic fleet.”

When BA dismissed the offer, he offered million pounds and five million pounds per aircraft. The planes would have remained on the New York to London route for Virgin Atlantic.

If Pan Am had kept its order and been financially solvent, then North America would have been a key investor in the Concordes' success. Other carriers in North America would have at least followed on and the Boeing 2707 would have been built.
If Iran Air had kept its order, we could have seen the rest of Asia follow suit, like Qantas.
With smaller and faster jets, the Boeing 747 would have been regulated to cargo operations and likely the A380 would never have been built.

Today's video skipped over India and Malaysia banning the pane, as well as a high-profile crash of the Russian Tu-144.

But thanks so much for making it this far, and learning that the Concorde really was about to become a huge success - if only for a few very interesting twists of history.

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