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>Concorde's commercial failure I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic

by TMWNN 3y ago

>Concorde's commercial failure I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic booms. I know reentering spacecraft cause sonic booms but thought that they occur high enough to not cause the same problems on the ground.

pests 3y ago
Not just a boom or booms, a continuous boom along its travel.
lmm 3y ago
> I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic booms. Or, if you're more cynical, because the US' own supersonic airliner failed and they wouldn't let those Euros show them up.
- philwelch 3y ago
  The American SST was cancelled because of the sonic boom problem.
  - lmm 3y ago
    It was cancelled because Boeing were late and over budget; by the time they started work on a prototype, Concorde was already being shown at airshows, and the US Senate voted to stop throwing more money at them. Sonic booms were at most one contributing factor among many to that senate vote.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      Concorde was also late and over budget. And until Congress defunded the 2707, it had more pending orders from more airlines than Concorde did. Sonic booms weren’t the only reason for the cancellation but they were probably the single biggest reason. Also, Concorde wasn’t even the first supersonic airliner—that was the Tupolev Tu-144.
pfdietz 3y ago
It failed because trading slightly shorter flight time for much higher cost was not worthwhile. Instead, airliners have been optimized for cost reduction and efficiency at high subsonic speeds.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  I am aware that airlines today fly slower than 50 years ago, to improve fuel efficiency. That said, all orders except the British and French flag carriers' were canceled because of the overland bans, correspondingly greatly increasing the per-unit cost of those that were sold. I think the NYC-to-London/Paris routes were (slightly) profitable; were there no overland bans, are there really no other routes that Concorde could also have flown?
markonen 3y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, this was definitely a key factor that made Concorde into a niche product. It's not that customers preferred slower and cheaper flights over Concorde—they didn't, Concorde had very healthy average occupancy rates and operating the flights was very profitable for BA and Air France (they got the planes for free, of course). It's that you can't fly a 1960s plane forever and you also can't amortize the design and development cost of new models with the only addressable market being first class customers travelling between the East Coast and a couple of European capitals (and this was directly caused by the overland flight restrictions). Flying Concorde is one of my fondest memories :/

by TMWNN 3y ago

pests 3y ago

Not just a boom or booms, a continuous boom along its travel.

lmm 3y ago

> I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic booms. Or, if you're more cynical, because the US' own supersonic airliner failed and they wouldn't let those Euros show them up.

philwelch 3y ago
The American SST was cancelled because of the sonic boom problem.
- lmm 3y ago
  It was cancelled because Boeing were late and over budget; by the time they started work on a prototype, Concorde was already being shown at airshows, and the US Senate voted to stop throwing more money at them. Sonic booms were at most one contributing factor among many to that senate vote.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    Concorde was also late and over budget. And until Congress defunded the 2707, it had more pending orders from more airlines than Concorde did. Sonic booms weren’t the only reason for the cancellation but they were probably the single biggest reason. Also, Concorde wasn’t even the first supersonic airliner—that was the Tupolev Tu-144.

pfdietz 3y ago

It failed because trading slightly shorter flight time for much higher cost was not worthwhile. Instead, airliners have been optimized for cost reduction and efficiency at high subsonic speeds.

TMWNN 3y ago
I am aware that airlines today fly slower than 50 years ago, to improve fuel efficiency. That said, all orders except the British and French flag carriers' were canceled because of the overland bans, correspondingly greatly increasing the per-unit cost of those that were sold. I think the NYC-to-London/Paris routes were (slightly) profitable; were there no overland bans, are there really no other routes that Concorde could also have flown?

markonen 3y ago

Not sure why you're getting downvoted, this was definitely a key factor that made Concorde into a niche product. It's not that customers preferred slower and cheaper flights over Concorde—they didn't, Concorde had very healthy average occupancy rates and operating the flights was very profitable for BA and Air France (they got the planes for free, of course). It's that you can't fly a 1960s plane forever and you also can't amortize the design and development cost of new models with the only addressable market being first class customers travelling between the East Coast and a couple of European capitals (and this was directly caused by the overland flight restrictions). Flying Concorde is one of my fondest memories :/