Marketing
It's a topic that's easily understood,FireFlyBob. But no matter how much razzle-dazzle Sir Branson could cook up about Concorde, it's hard to better the tried ways of 27 years' experience by the current operators.
And mind you that when VS had introduced trans Atlantic service many moons ago, BA didn't suddenly fly lots of empty seats across the pond. I well remember sitting in a VS 74 sardine can coach cabin with a seat pitch at the time of no more than what felt like 29 inches.
Even in Virgin livery, it would continue to be a very expensive machine to operate. The bottom line is that it's a numbers game, and the numbers haven't been in the black primarily because of the global recession. Maybe that's why Boeing had shelved its Sonic Cruiser program for now.
Last month when BA had made an emergency landing on Nova Scotia, it was discovered that only 47 pax were aboard! Needless to say, today there just aren't enough well to do travellers who are prepared to part with USD4000 for a 3.4 hour flight, no matter what livery the airframe sports.