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IIRC Concorde development was highly subsidized by the government but it became a sustainable business for British Airways as long as there were wealthy busines
by quux 5y ago
IIRC Concorde development was highly subsidized by the government but it became a sustainable business for British Airways as long as there were wealthy business travelers willing to pay a huge premium to get between the financial centers of NYC and London in 3 hours. After 9/11 a lot of that business went away and Concorde wasn't viable anymore.
- notahacker 5y agoBoom is taking the government's role, not BA's. I once did a back of the envelope calculation which suggested the government could have lost less money paying for a NY- Europe business class ticket on a regular aircraft for every person ever to fly Concorde. It was as spectacularly bad commercially as it was impressive technologically. It was a sustainable business for BA because they got several aircraft at giveaway prices (the minister who sold them conceded it may have been the worst deal ever negotiated by a government!) which they could charge extortionate rates to fly on, but they still weren't flying more than one of them at a time very often.