BA was able to make money on Concorde as in positive cash flow. But they were basically given the airplanes. The commercial failure aspect comes from the simple fact that no one wanted them to build any more (what I've heard is that at least one production Concorde was built but never put into service - basically becoming a donor for spares - not sure if that's true). I also suspect it was too much of a point design - it didn't have the range to be useful in the Pacific.
If BA (and Air France) honestly thought Concorde was a profit center (rather than brand prestige), they would have wanted more
.
BTW, my comments about the flight deck were not intended as criticism - no doubt it was state of the art when it was designed. I was just commenting on how much things have changed since then.
I don't mean to dispute that the Concorde was an incredible airplane and engineering achievement. Just saying that it never really had a chance to be successful. The same thing would have applied to the Boeing SST if it hadn't been cancelled (I knew a guy that worked on the Boeing SST inlet control system - talk about complex
). Cancelling the SST is probably the best thing that ever happened to Boeing - it likely would have bankrupted the company.
