[masswerk]

That these planes were operated only by BA and Air France (and a similar plane to some extent by Aeroflot) was merely an accident. Concorde was developed as a mass transport and there was broad interest. Then the US ban and the oil crisis happened.

[rbg246]

Yes but this is my point is there are great reasons why concorde failed but equally it's technology was not enough of progress to overcome the fact that 747s could do things at much greater scale and more economically.

The reach of aeroplane travel is far more impressive now than flying under a 100 people at supersonic speeds.

I also dispute that there was mass transport plans - the total passenger load was tiny.

Not to take away that the plane itself is an amazing piece of technology.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Concorde failed because of politics, not technology. The US wanted to make way for its own SST project so it limited Concorde's access to the US market.

A Concorde B variant with an even longer range and quieter engines was already being developed, and airlines were very interested in it. if the US market had been more open it's likely other markets would have followed suit.

Once it was stabilised in the market other improvements would have followed. Concorde was always a first class for the first class market, not an air bus. But if supersonic travel had become established there would have been market pressure to commoditise it, and we might have seen a continuing supersonic long haul market working in parallel with the smaller more local subsonic services we have now.

[pfdietz]

Concorde failed because of the technology. It was hugely expensive and consumed mass amounts of fuel (13x the fuel per passenger of a 747-200). It used 2 tons of fuel just to taxi to the runway for takeoff!

I dispute that airlines were actually interested in a Concorde B. The economic problems of supersonic flight would have remained.

There's a reason Boeing abandoned any pretense of interest in SST after Congress declined to fund it.

[checker]

Yeah I'll take decent in-flight internet connectivity over massive amounts of fuel being consumed to get to the destination faster.

[CapricornNoble]

I'd like the option of supersonic travel for transoceanic voyages. I'm looking at plane tickets back to the East Coast from Japan.... Tokyo to Dallas alone is ~12hrs, total travel time ~24hrs across 3 flights. Flying to the other side of the planet faster would be far more valuable to me than even browsing HN while airborne (I tend to sleep through my flights, no matter how long, anyway).

[pfdietz]

Given that Concorde's maximum range is less than the distance from Tokyo to Dallas, I suspect you'd end up saving little time on that leg with it, as you'd add an extra stop. The rest of your trip sounds like mostly waiting in airports. How does an SST help with that? If anything, the lower traffic on expensive SST flights would tend to make the flights less frequent, increasing those waits. It might end up taking longer.

[rbg246]

I totally agree but at what price point.

I do think supersonic was just priced out of the market. Would you pay twice for the time saving?