Skipness
Who the Hell wants a clap of thunder overhead every day of their lives?
It wouldn't bother me. It might if it happened every half hour.
Agaricus bisporus
Concorde wasn't obsolete when withdrawn from service. It would have been in about 10 years.
The BA fleet wasn't chronically uneconomic. It consistently made a healthy profit from the mid-80s until the Paris crash in 2000. (Post crash, it wasn't profitable - until the retirement was announced and then flights were full because many people took their last opportunity to fly in Concorde.)
I've lived under the LHR flightpath for more than 30 years and, although Concorde was louder than other aircraft, never found it 'shockingly noisy'.
I agree the fuel-burn would have been unacceptable to some people in modern times. The strength of their objection would depend upon how extreme their green views.
Concorde didn't have a dodgy safety record. After the Paris crash even minor incidents were exaggerated out of all proportion by some sections of the British media.
The manufacturer's successor (Airbus Industrie) announced it was no longer prepared to continue charging the two operators less than the actual cost for its work. Air France wanted (arguably needed) to withdraw Concorde from service: the airline was in dire financial straits pre the KLM merger and, unlike BA, had never made a financial success of its Concorde fleet. BA couldn't afford to bear the DA cost alone given the declining market post crash and economic downturn.
We'll never know if Airbus, as the design authority, would have taken that stance if Air France had not wanted to get out of Concorde. But we can have our suspicions.
