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The economics behind the failure of the Concorde are far more complicated than "people didn't buy enough tickets". There were an extremely limited amount of ro

The economics behind the failure of the Concorde are far more complicated than "people didn't buy enough tickets". There were an extremely limited amount of routes (basically you could fly out of NYC or Washington DC to either London or Paris), mostly due to the problem of sonic booms, but also because the plane design was such that there was essentially a minimum travel distance for it to ever be reasonably economically viable. It isn't like there was a Southwest offering Concorde flights from LA to SFO at 1.5x or 2.0x times the price of a normal ticket. The Concorde actually sold pretty well given how limited the routes were until the entire airline industry started to crater around the turn of the century (9/11, etc). There was also a lot of politics behind the Concorde discontinuation that had nothing to do with pure economics. Having said all of that, our cheapness does seem to be doing harm to a lot of industries over time, where if you want to buy a new product your choices are like a dozen shitty things made by the lowest bidder in China or 2 "premium" choices that are only marginally better than the cheap shit at like 5 times the cost. Something similar to the capitalistic middle-class squeeze we have been going through seems to apply to product choices as well.

omni 13y ago
I can think of at least 113 other reasons as well. I'd imagine a fatal crash would have had much more impact on consumer attitudes towards the Concorde than it would towards other, more "conventional" plane models. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590
- mortenjorck 13y ago
  It's strange. The Concorde crash was clearly due to a cascade of safety protocol violations, from Continental's runway debris and subsequent skipped runway inspection, to Air France's overweight takeoff, yet the Concorde itself, despite a spotless record, became the target of public outrage.
  - breser 13y ago
    The safety issues were not the full reason that the Concorde was grounded permanently. It was grounded temporarily until the design issues raised by the crash were resolved by design changes (Kevlar lining in fuel tanks, burst resistant tires). If safety was the real driver, the improvements would never have been made and deployed. The real problem was that the Concorde was a 1960's design in 2003 with only 20 units produced. As such it did not continue to receive upgrades and other refinements that other aircraft do. Compare what a 737-100 looked like and what a 737 you'd fly on today looks like. That's just the visual changes, think of the improvements you can't see. Like improved cockpit controls. With only 20 units parts were expensive. Airbus didn't want to support the aircraft either. I'm sure there was some decrease in passengers after the crash. But I don't think there was a public outrage. With time the numbers would have recovered. They retired the plan not even a full year after restoring service. As I understand it Air France was selling tickets at less than their cost to operate it. While both BA and AF announced the cancelations at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if Air France was the group that decided to pull the plug first. Taking out half the planes would have made the maintenance even more expensive for BA. Finally, Richard Branson tried to buy the BA Concorde fleet and continue operating it. Branson is not an idiot at business, he obviously thought there was a market there. For some reason that's not clear BA refused to sell to him. Which leads to the other possible reason for retirement, the airlines figured out they could make more profit selling subsonic first class than Concorde tickets. Not selling to Branson prevented him from having the supersonic competitive advantage.

omni 13y ago

I can think of at least 113 other reasons as well. I'd imagine a fatal crash would have had much more impact on consumer attitudes towards the Concorde than it would towards other, more "conventional" plane models. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590

mortenjorck 13y ago
It's strange. The Concorde crash was clearly due to a cascade of safety protocol violations, from Continental's runway debris and subsequent skipped runway inspection, to Air France's overweight takeoff, yet the Concorde itself, despite a spotless record, became the target of public outrage.
- breser 13y ago
  The safety issues were not the full reason that the Concorde was grounded permanently. It was grounded temporarily until the design issues raised by the crash were resolved by design changes (Kevlar lining in fuel tanks, burst resistant tires). If safety was the real driver, the improvements would never have been made and deployed. The real problem was that the Concorde was a 1960's design in 2003 with only 20 units produced. As such it did not continue to receive upgrades and other refinements that other aircraft do. Compare what a 737-100 looked like and what a 737 you'd fly on today looks like. That's just the visual changes, think of the improvements you can't see. Like improved cockpit controls. With only 20 units parts were expensive. Airbus didn't want to support the aircraft either. I'm sure there was some decrease in passengers after the crash. But I don't think there was a public outrage. With time the numbers would have recovered. They retired the plan not even a full year after restoring service. As I understand it Air France was selling tickets at less than their cost to operate it. While both BA and AF announced the cancelations at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if Air France was the group that decided to pull the plug first. Taking out half the planes would have made the maintenance even more expensive for BA. Finally, Richard Branson tried to buy the BA Concorde fleet and continue operating it. Branson is not an idiot at business, he obviously thought there was a market there. For some reason that's not clear BA refused to sell to him. Which leads to the other possible reason for retirement, the airlines figured out they could make more profit selling subsonic first class than Concorde tickets. Not selling to Branson prevented him from having the supersonic competitive advantage.