4 ms·

The Concorde was developed in £1.134 billion[1], in today's dollars that's about £7.37B[2]. [1] http://www.concordesst.com/faq.html http://www.concordesst.com/

by sargun 11y ago

The Concorde was developed in £1.134 billion[1], in today's dollars that's about £7.37B[2]. [1] http://www.concordesst.com/faq.html http://www.concordesst.com/faq.html [2] http://inflation.stephenmorley.org/ http://inflation.stephenmorley.org/

samfisher83 11y ago
That is only development costs. That is about 10billion dollars. If the margin on the plane is 50% which is just to breakeven they would need to sell 20billion dollars worth. If they can sell each plane for 300 mil they would need to sell 67 to break even. There were 20 concordes that were ever made. Margins on aircraft are never 50%. For 787 its like 10-15%.
- twistedpair 11y ago
  10% Margin? They wish. Boeing is losing $25 million for every 787 it delivers [1]. Boeing investors would be ecstatic to get a 1% margin right now. [1] http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/will-787-program-ever-show-an-overall-profit-analysts-grow-more-skeptical/ http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/will-7...
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    How much of that is fixed-cost accounting loss? Aircraft have high design costs (figure for the '87 is above), but the actual manufacturing costs should be ... somewhat reasonable. I have a hard time imagining Boeing would be selling the aircraft if they weren't recovering their marginal costs.
    - mikeyouse 11y ago
      Coincidentally, Boeing's being investigated by the SEC for their bizarre program accounting to answer this exact question. http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/report-boeing-faces-sec-probe-of-dreamliner-747-accounting/ http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/report... The "never make a profit" line is probably a tax-deferral strategy which is reflected by their stock price increasing ~100% in the past 5 years. Not exactly the performance you'd expect of a floundering company.

by sargun 11y ago

samfisher83 11y ago

That is only development costs. That is about 10billion dollars. If the margin on the plane is 50% which is just to breakeven they would need to sell 20billion dollars worth. If they can sell each plane for 300 mil they would need to sell 67 to break even. There were 20 concordes that were ever made. Margins on aircraft are never 50%. For 787 its like 10-15%.

twistedpair 11y ago
10% Margin? They wish. Boeing is losing $25 million for every 787 it delivers [1]. Boeing investors would be ecstatic to get a 1% margin right now. [1] http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/will-787-program-ever-show-an-overall-profit-analysts-grow-more-skeptical/ http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/will-7...
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  How much of that is fixed-cost accounting loss? Aircraft have high design costs (figure for the '87 is above), but the actual manufacturing costs should be ... somewhat reasonable. I have a hard time imagining Boeing would be selling the aircraft if they weren't recovering their marginal costs.
  - mikeyouse 11y ago
    Coincidentally, Boeing's being investigated by the SEC for their bizarre program accounting to answer this exact question. http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/report-boeing-faces-sec-probe-of-dreamliner-747-accounting/ http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/report... The "never make a profit" line is probably a tax-deferral strategy which is reflected by their stock price increasing ~100% in the past 5 years. Not exactly the performance you'd expect of a floundering company.