Concorde to Retire?
 

Hi guys;
someone from Brit Air told me that they are planning on retiring Concorde real soon. They have laid off crews and have started cancelling flights.

Anyone else heard anything? It would be a real shame to she her go, especially after all the work they did to get her back flying again after that crash.

The big white bird is the SUV of civil aviation. It is old technology, a gas guzzler and has no logical justification. But like the SUV it attracts a certain type of customer who just wants to be seen in it.

And just like the SUV, so long as there are punters willing to pay, it will carry on.

May be its due to after effect of Shuttle disaster.

Funny you should say that Coachdriver, because I've been hearing comments from within BA saying much the same thing - word of crews being shunted sideways, increasing lack of parts, very low demand on NAT routes. I've even heard talk of it being taken out of service within one year.

I heard from somwone very high up on the High Life magazine staff that they have been instructed that the magazine for Concorde will not be published after April 2004. The Rocket's always had her own version (apparently!) so the person who passed this on said that this spells the end for Speedbird 1. They also thought that Conc finishing was common knowledge!!

Concorde had an emergency landing the other day at Halifax looks like its soon going to be grounded

Well thats the stupidest thing I've read on PPRuNe today, and there's been some pretty stupid things posted. So AIR FRANCE divert a Concorde to Halifax and so BRITISH AIRWAYS' Concordes are to be retired? Next you'll be saying the 777 fleet is running down because Malaysian had an engine failure.

Well Han

I actually 2 reasons why this aircraft should be retired :

1) I couldn't fly it although I would have given my left n.t and waited quite a few years hoping I would get on a course. The tooth fairy had some other business to attend to rather than bless me.

2) How long before something worse than " diverting to Gander " happens ?

1) Daft point, if there was a point to it.

2) Best also ground all those old 747-100 and 200s, the 737-200s, all the old 707s, plus a few of those more modern aircraft with high cycles. You never know when one of those might just break up in mid-air, just like TWA800 did, or that China Airlines 747 last year. What, no aircraft left in the skies I hear you say?

Rumour has it 10 Concorde flight engineers have just been given the boot off the fleet. Anyone know any more ?

Assuming only three were modified after the Paris accident, and that the contracts were signed and sealed for the seats and interior, there may be some very collectable new seats on e-bay shorlty.

There were those within BA suggesting that the old lady should have been retired after Paris. The problem was what to do about these very expensive contracts to update the interior.

I feel for wallabie not being able to fly it. Many of us did have the chance (look at the seniority spread on the fleet... by no means top of the list) but for one reason or another turned it down. For me it was all about the lack of variety. JFK this week, next week .... with only an infrequent Barbados to ring the changes....not for me. I loved my flying, but it was about the variety and not the airplane!

We should be proud the Brits (and those others across the channel) built it but for me its time the old lady was retired.

Its a horrible yield killer for BA.

Even if it is mildly profitable. They charge the same fare that they get for 1st class on a 747/777. If you took those passangers and put em on the subsonic fleet the subsonic fleet would be wildly profitable.

What the concorde does is skim the high paying pax off the subsonic fleet, thereby destroying the yield. When the price of fuel spikes, the economic case for concorde gets even tougher.

Cheers
Wino

I think it costs a bit more than regular first, and a lot more if you want a day return, which isn't realistic on subsonic transport. Its easy to say it skims the high-yield passengers from the subsonic services, but thats based on the assumption that those passengers would choose to fly on other BA services. The speed and the prestige are the attraction of Concorde, once you strip those away the passenger may well find they get better value on another carrier?

I agree it would be a great shame for this beautiful Old Lady to be retired.
However business is business, and the load factors (i.e. profitability) has been poor for BA since Paris, and some of its former users have either been scared off, or become used to other ways of making the journey. First Class 747 being that much cheaper!

But. Most people we all know would love to fly her, even just once. So who would blame the resourceful BA marketing department for letting everyone think that she is going to be retired soon. That would perk demand, and with it profitability, and BA's currently tarnished image no end!

Concorde to Retire?
 

Huh,

I get the feeling that we are sliding backwards here.

I read the other day that the average flight from london to paris since the 70s has grown longer by 12-15 min due to ATC and Approach saturation.

If we lose concorde, we more than double again the time anybody can freely cross the Atlantic. Concorde is old, but it surely is not an impossible thing to design a replacement aircraft?

Advances in technology should also mean that sector yields would be increased...

There will come a day when she has to be retired, but that shouldn’t be for some time yet. Don’t forget, the people who make these decisions are the same ones who dropped the Tristar because engine for engine it was more expensive to maintain than other four engine aeroplanes, and the same people who wanted to withdraw the 767 post 9/11 because our customers don’t like flying on single aisled aircraft. The Concorde is a nuclear jet with ten engines that irradiates its passengers and crew with bad waves. It kills all butterflies in the path of its transonic bloom, and disturbs the breeding cycles of badgers.

Since Ayling Bob left them out in the wet for a year (he’d sold their hanger to make a car park), there is an increased maintenance load, as you would expect if you parked your Aston out in the London weather for twelve months. In service, skin temperatures reach over 100C, and so corrosion was never a problem.

Wouldn’t it be nice if just for once the beancounters would say ‘So it’s expensive, but it’s beautiful and no-one else has one. There are no competitors.’. But we live in a World devoid of nostalgia and sentiment. Hard ball accounting, big bonuses and KRA’s have probably set the wheels in motion already. You can tell from the absence of Concorde in the advertising that BA runs.

I remember watching the Vulcan just before it flew for the last time and how I felt. I hope the same is not about to happen to Concorde.

http://www.80scartoons.8k.com/roobarb10wee.gif
I’ll take on the opposition anyday. It’s my management I can’t beat!

but who is going to be first to buy it privately and run a part share scheme in it.

European Aviation of course ;)

Well, noone has told me it's about to retire.

To answer a few points made earlier:

BA are not dropping services - we fly 7 JFKs in Summer and 6 jfks plus one BGI in Winter. Occasionally, a JFK is left out of the timetable (not cancelled) e.g. Christmas or when the extra BGIs are run near xmas.

Five BA Concs (not 3) have returned to flight status, the sixth is on hold until market conditions are more favourable, the seventh would only be required when a board decision was taken to return to running a very comprehensive charter programme. The Liners and seats were purchased for all seven.

Some parts have always been hard to procure, there is no significant change there.

Someone said Load factors had been low - we ran all Summer, Autumn and most of the Winter with LFs in excess of 80%. Break even is dependent onfuel prices but is 15-25%. There are hard times ahead, which is why there are no plans to restart a double-daily at this time.

Yield eater? Not so - a glance at the PIL shows the high-paying pax are more often than no connecting to or from the Conc. These are pax who, but for SSC, would be travelling First from the nearest hub and so often not with BA.

The Fes are a more sensitive matter. The fleet was deliberately over-established with FEs when the classic retired in order to maintain the programme to 2010-2015. Since Gonesse the fleet has gone from double-daily JFK plus Winter BGI plus a BIG charter programme, to just 7 flights a week. Even before Gonesse a surplus of flt crew was caused by the decision to curtail the charters and some were going to leave the fleet. Post Gonesse only a few pilots made it back (approx 2/5 of the previous). The FEs had nowhere to go and 10 are apparently not going to be required owing to the reduced flying programme. They have our utmost sympathy.

There are grim times ahead, not just for Conc but for everyone flying the Atlantic. There are going to be low load-factors for all premium traffic. But - when the current tribulations are over - the core market is still there and there will be no replacement. A company that grounded this aircraft because of the current climate would be so short-sighted it probably would not weather the storm anyway. I give them more credit at the moment.

I can't help thinking that if the USA had been involved in the design & construction, history would show a totally different career for SST. The only one of its' kind in the world and all we Brits can do is complain about the noise and how much of a gas guzzler it is. What happened to having pride in your nations achievements?
One of aviations greatest missed opportunities. :(

Big Tudor - that would assume that the world economy didn't perform quite as badly as it did when Concorde was available - it did of course actually have a large number of orders, all of which were cancelled eventually. This included American carriers such as (I believe) Pan Am. Besides that I don't quite see how American involvement would have given it a difference career, since the costs were absorbed by the UK and French governments (which I am sure the US would also have done) and certainly the current state of United and American is a lot less robust than BA and Air France.

The rumour that is going the rounds is not exactly that BA will no longer keep it flying, but that if it came to such a situation such as losing its CAA certificate, then BA and AF would not bother to invest in ANY futher modifications.

The investment made post Paris certainly demonstrates to me that there was a certain pride in this aircraft, don't you?

By a different career I mean that a long-term investment and development program would have been created with the project to create a successor when the time came. What we have is the pride of the British Airways fleet suffering criticism from a British public who don't seem to recognise what an achievement Concorde was for Anglo-French industry. Such achievements seem to receive far more recognition amongst the US public than over here.

The economic climate was hardly conducive to such an expensive aircraft but it was no different when the B747 first took to the skies, and it is hard to see how that project could not be called a success. The order book was looking quite healthy at first for Concorde but, in my opinion, the sway of public opinion in the US contributed to the cancellation of those orders. Would US public opinion have been so anti if the SST was part/wholly US designed & built? Who am I to say.

It seems a great shame that no aircraft manufacturer is prepared to look to high speed aircraft as a viable solution for the future. It seems ironic that the average flying time across the Atlantic is now 10 mins longer than when Concorde first flew!

Higher fares for Concorde
 

Wino,

For a return trip to JFK, out 10/3 back 14/3, First Class return is £6,576 and Concorde return is £8,272.

So I guess that there is still a "premium" for Concorde.

Doing it together?
 

I was lucky enough to realise a long held ambition to fly on Concorde to JFK and back recently.

Talking to the CC on the flight over I was asking about the long term prospects. I was told that there were no plans at present to retire her, but that the ever increasing maintenance costs were an issue. A break even point of around 32 full fare payers (I was on an upgrade both ways!) was quoted for covering the running/non-maintenance costs. Something backed up in WOK's post above.

However the key point made was that all Concorde decisions were in tandem with Air France ... the innaugural flights, the return to service dates etc.. So the last flights would be the same for both fleets. Part of some original agreement or something. If this is so then a) what is AF's view on the matter, and b) is there any truth in the date of 2007 for the AF Concorde's I read elswhere? Doesn't that tie BA into 2007, if the "Concorde" agreement holds true?

I'm no accountant, but isn't having Concorde on your fleet like invisible income from tourism etc.? It's simple to tally up the running costs, drop in yields elsewhere, etc. but how many punters does it bring to the airlines because of it's fame/notoriety/anorak factor (me!) etc.?

Duncan

latest cuts
 

It is sad to hear this news & rumours but no smoke without fire as they say. The reports of people being "given the boot" is maybe a result as a continued drive by the bean counters to drive efficiency and work appropriate levels of staff (overheads) in proportion to aircraft utilisation and revenue.

It is fair to say there are 5 of these aircraft "air worthy" currently - BA might see it as how much overhead do we need to support the amount of aircraft, small number off flights, low utilisation and volatile NAT market.

Parts - yes, remains an issue for any old aircraft or vehicle indeed.

Is there any plans to use the Concordes "not in service" of the G-BOAA to BOAG airframes for cannibalisation as the source of parts on the other airframes expire?

Someone said that Concorde creams the high yield pax. from the subsonic fleets. In fact Concorde is used as a marketing tool by the airline when selling large corporate accounts (which must be the life blood of biz. and first class) by offering a certain number of Concorde upgrades per year in the deal thereby making BA more attractive than it's transatlantic rivals.

I thought I had read somewhere that it had already been decided that the seventh aircraft (presumably G-BOAA, the last in the queue for the safety modifications) would not be modified and would be cannibalised. I hope that these posts indicate that that isn't true.

It has not *definitely* been decided to retire/cannibalise AA but, bluntly, unless the worlds economy makes a spectacular unexpected recovery or BA decides to run a massive charter programme, she is unlikely to be needed for years to come. The airframe is entirely intact, minus elevons, pcus and some windows, and is safely stored under cover. She even has three Olympus' on board.

AB is in another hangar, again structurally intact, sans engines, elevons and rudders but with pfcus and with the engineering work on the new lavatories complete. Both still await spar72 mod and liners. AB would be the next airframe out when required.

AG is just about to emerge with the phase 2 flt deck door, C,D,E &F will folllow soon.

With a very large FD door modification programme ongoing through the airline it is hard commit enough engineers to the operation to move things any faster, so it is probable that even without the dismal economic climate AB would be waiting for a while yet.

"....rumours of the Conc fleet's demise are greatly exaggerated........."

Stelios' dad got rich by buying tankers at a time when no-one could operate them profitably and then waiting. Last year's rumour about easyConc could yet come to fruition...;)

Umm, the 767 has two aisles.....

WOK, you said;
Not quite true. With only 2 of the aircraft current serviceable out of 5, BA are cancelling services in March.....so that they don't have to cancel services in March, in order that they can produce a rubust service. So they are pre-cancelling services so that they can point to the operation and say "Look, it works". Mickey Mouse or what.

Load factors were at 70-80%, but the majority of those were upgrades from passengers who had paid for a full fare Club World ticket.

Actually, to 2007.

So BA kicked them out just one day before they were due to get a pay rise on the Concorde Fleet.

Getting back to the thread topic, the remaining Flight Engineers on the Concorde Fleet will be able to provide one flight a day only up to September 2004 - 18 months away. This is due to retirements. So the original posters comments about Concorde about to retire may very well come true within the next 18 months or so, won't it?

regards

covertwar.

Yes the 767 has two isles and the tristar has 3 engines. I think it was a bit of sarcasm. A typical british habit i'm affraid.

Which isles are those then?

Wight?

Iona?

Wherever?

Retiring Concorde would be a typically stupid British thing to do.

Its the only thing we have left to be proud of.

BA Beancounters do not realise that Conc is good for Morale, good for Corporate and Frequent fliers alike. However, as usual they are trying their best to kill her off, just like BR did with the railways

Death by a thousand cuts.

As I have mentioned before. Look what you get for your 9K pounds now.

1) New seats - absolutely awful. Plastic with a bit of leather. Lean back too fast and they break

2) Cut down cabin service who can hardly get round the PAX

3) All the little gifts taken away, like seat back cards etc

It used to be a pleasure, but now its just a time saving device. After 25 trips on the old girl its not the fun it used to be. I used to find all sorts of creative ways to get the company to pay but I can't be bothered any more.

Don't get me wrong, BA is the best Airline bar none, look at the ridiculous efforts of Virgin et al to produce flat beds in business class, but either offer a service comparable with the price or give it up.

Whilst I expect there will continue to be plenty of people out there willing to fork over £2 grand more than first class return transatlantic for the financial exclusivity of flying Concorde, the combination of diminishing yields and prestige must be wearing somewhat thin.

Consider, what importance do the 99.9% (or whatever the percentage really is) of BA's customers attach to the fact that BA also operate Concordes? Does that mental association really influence their ticket decisions? Do they really think BA's operating Concorde makes their own flight better/safer/more exclusive etc? What do they really think of the people who DO pay nearly twenty times as much just to save a few hours of transatlantic flight time. Having thought, does that make them buy BA again, or not?

Don't shoot me; I'm just asking questions of myself. But put national pride and aversion to beancounters aside for a moment. There comes a stage when you do have to step back and try to see what the world is thinking and where you fit into it all. On that basis and considering the rumours posted herein, I'd bet on termination this year.

Back 31/12/03
broadreach

Excellent reply by TwoTun to the first post by WOK

I wonder if he (or she) will respond

TV NEWS ON THIS
 

It now appears that the UK TV has got to hear about this!!!

As a snippet piece of news today GMTV and BBC Breakfast news in the UK at 0630hrs this morning reports "speculation brewing over the early retirement of Concorde since the Air France accident".
Pictures of a BA Conc in new livery landing on 27L shown.

I wonder if the breakfast news teams peruse PPRUNE in search of stories?

Either way it will be a sad day when she dissapears.
I hope that it will be a long long time from now.

BBC News has it too...

Sky news confirmed it about half an hour ago.

Presumably BA will take into account the imminent rise in fuel costs and the fact it is a major terrorist target.

I feel the fat lady is singing for Concorde..

It'll be a sad day when Concorde flies no more. It's such a beautiful plane, with style as well as good engineering.
It's also very sad that in the 21st century we don't have anything to beat it. We should be travelling London- Sydney in less than half a day on a hypersonic sub-orbital jet by now...!
If not that, then you'd think with modern materials we could build a super-concorde capable to taking more passengers with greater efficiency?

I hope when BA do withdraw it that they can give them to the Red Arrows for special formations... That was bloody impressive at the Jubilee last year!