They have not been flying for a long time, but the Concorde remains an icon. Why?

Together with the Tupolev Tu-144, Concorde was one of the two commercially used aircraft that could fly faster than sound. Concorde even reached more than mach 2. More than twice the speed of sound!

Happy few

Flying in the Concorde was not for everyone. A ticket from London to New York cost, converted to today's prices, about € 12,500. Ow, that hurts. That is at least 30 times as much as a normal ticket (pre-Covid prices).

Why was Concorde so expensive?

First of all, of course, because it was an incredibly complex machine. Not just to fly. But it took a lot to get this plane in the air. A fine piece of engineering, but not necessarily very economical to fly.

Also, only a few Concordes were eventually built. It would never become accessible to a large public. And there was another problem: going through the sound barrier produces a gigantic bang. You don't want that over inhabited areas. So it really only made sense if you flew across the ocean.

In the end, only British Airways and Air France both had 7 flying around.

After a fatal crash of a Concorde in July 2000 and the collapse of the aircraft industry after the attacks of 11 September 2001, they were taken out of service.

Flying at more than Mach 1 became just another dream...