Concorde was a flying masterpiece and it is hard to believe that this year it is the 40th anniversary of the first commercial flight which flew from London Heathrow to Bahrain on January 21st 1976. Its final commercial flight touched down on 24th October 2003 and during its 27 years it flew just under 50,000 times flying over 2.5 million passengers supersonically.

Its flying speed was a pacey 1350mph, which is over twice the speed of sound (Mach 2.5). A normal London to New York flight used to take under three and a half hours compared to the usual eight hours for standard planes these days. The aircraft seated 100 passengers: 40 in the front cabin and 60 in the rear cabin and although they didn’t spend a huge amount of time on board, passengers were generously fed with caviar and lobster canapes, grilled fillet steak washed down Dom Perignon champagne.

Concorde was jointly developed by British Airways and Air France with each having seven aircrafts. Alpha Bravo was one of seven that was operated by British Airways and is currently still sitting in London Heathrow airport at the end of the second runway. Not only does it look stunning but it also serves a more practical purpose with BA apprentice engineers working on it to keep it looking as good as it did over 40 years ago.



The other six planes owned by BA are currently dispersed around the world in areas including Barbados, Edinburgh, Filton, Manchester, New York and Seattle.

When Concorde made its last flight over 12 year ago, most people thought they would never see it in the skies again. Although BA and Air France have said they have no plans to start Concorde flights, there is a group called Club Concorde that believe they now have sufficient financial backing to return the historic aircraft to service. There are two main aims to their plan, they firstly want to make it a tourist attraction over-looking the London Eye with a restaurant offering various dishes that were originally served on Concorde flights. The second and more ambitious plans are to get Concord flying again. It is however most likely going to be air shows, special events and for private charter rather than its previous commercial scheduled flights.

Concorde continues to holds the world record for the fastest flight across the Atlantic by a civil aircraft which was made on 7th February 1996, from New York to London and took only two hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds. Aircraft manufacturer Airbus have taken inspiration from this supersonic plane, recently winning a patent for the next step in super-fast air travel. Currently in the planning stage is a hypersonic plane, which is named the “Ultra-rapid air vehicle” but dubbed Concorde 2.0.



The Concorde 2.0 would fly at Mach 4.5, compared to up to Mach 2.5 which was the original speed of Concorde. Don’t start booking your tickets yet though as this project has been predicted to take over 30 years before it flies passengers commercially.

So it would now appear that the prospect of a return to commercial supersonic flights could be on the cards sometime in the future, watch this space.