Too cheap to fly fast

[benmay]

I was reading this yesterday ... interesting history on subsonic flight. A harsh reality that I think I agree with .... flying is all about lower cost. not getting faster.

If it only took 4hrs to fly to the USA, I'd be happy to pay for Economy if it cost the same as A380 Business Class (if that makes sense)

https://medium.com/lift-and-drag/7885a299bca2

So you can stop dreaming about flying half way around the world in less time than it takes to watch an in-flight movie. You’re stuck at 560 miles per hour.
Face it: You’re too cheap to fly faster.

 

[opusman]

And yet BA ran Concorde at a profit.

 

[BAM1748]

And yet BA ran Concorde at a profit.

It did take 15 years before the profits started arriving.

 

[oz_mark]

And yet BA ran Concorde at a profit.

It was a niche product, and I don't think it would go so well as a mass market proposition.

 

[harvyk]

From memory, wasn't a trip on concorde about the same price as a F ticket, and wasn't it basically Y seating with a pretty limited service (from what I understood, weight was at an absolute premium)?
There are very few people whose time is worth that much that the cost for a concorde ticket is truly justified.

All that said, I would have loved to experience concorde at least once.

 

[moa999]

Almost all modern jets fly at about Mach 0.85 (ie. Just below the speed of sound).

To go above this requires substantial increased engineering in the plane, as well as that "pesky" sonic boom, which pretty much limited the Concorde to over water routes.

 

[harvyk]

Almost all modern jets fly at about Mach 0.85 (ie. Just below the speed of sound).

To go above this requires substantial increased engineering in the plane, as well as that "pesky" sonic boom, which pretty much limited the Concorde to over water routes.

Ultimately I do believe that the sonic boom is pretty much the thing which was the killer for the concorde. Unfortunately it really does limit the usefulness of the aircraft. That said I do think one day we will have a method of muffling it and as soon as that happens we'll see new SST aircraft out in virtually no time at all.

 

[benmay]

I don't really like flying, so If I could fly to the States in 3-5hrs, ie, 3-4 times faster, I'd totally justify paying more.

Also, I wonder how planes at those speeds, ie, MACH 2-4 deal with turbulence, I know they fly higher, but surely that doesn't mean no bumps?

 

[harvyk]

I don't really like flying, so If I could fly to the States in 3-5hrs, ie, 3-4 times faster, I'd totally justify paying more.

Also, I wonder how planes at those speeds, ie, MACH 2-4 deal with turbulence, I know they fly higher, but surely that doesn't mean no bumps?

it would make a trip to the states (without stopping) around 7 hours. However I don't believe they had that much fuel in them, so a pit stop half way though would most likely be required.

Also I'm sure there are those who could give a first hand account, but I could imagine that they would be smoother than their subsonic cousins given the inertia.

 

[drewbles]

It did take 15 years before the profits started arriving.

And shortly before its closure, was the most profitable route for BA despite what pundits were saying. The crash was the problem, not the financial crisis.

Rich are (usually) always rich. The majority of the people flying Concorde were Celebs and people with vast wealth. There was the market.

 

[benmay]

it would make a trip to the states (without stopping) around 7 hours. However I don't believe they had that much fuel in them, so a pit stop half way though would most likely be required.

Also I'm sure there are those who could give a first hand account, but I could imagine that they would be smoother than their subsonic cousins given the inertia.

I'm not really positioning my thoughts on Concorde, No doubt if it was attempted again these days, It'd be done differently. (Premise of the original article, flight at M5 etc)

 

[QF WP]

From memory, wasn't a trip on concorde about the same price as a F ticket, and wasn't it basically Y seating with a pretty limited service (from what I understood, weight was at an absolute premium)?
There are very few people whose time is worth that much that the cost for a concorde ticket is truly justified.

All that said, I would have loved to experience concorde at least once.

Can't recall the cost of a single flight, mine was part of an AONE4 (but was a supplementary cost to the standard AONE4)

Seating photo below - size was similar to PE but it was all leather.

Limited service? Well it was only 3h45m LHR/JFK on BA1, but it was full service meal - Krug anybody??

Yes, we don't understand the value of time - as the article states:

Time is money, but only up to a point.

I am glad I got to experience once, as it's something nobody can take away from me and was number 1 on my lifetime goals list. Tick.

From the Concorde Room
View attachment Concorde Pic 1.pdf

Seating
View attachment Concorde Seats.pdf

On board - pre flight
View attachment Concorde Pre TakeOff.pdf

Mach 1
View attachment Concorde Mach 1.pdf

Mach 2
View attachment Concorde Mach 2.pdf

Apologies for the poor quality - old style camera back then...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

From memory, wasn't a trip on concorde about the same price as a F ticket, and wasn't it basically Y seating with a pretty limited service (from what I understood, weight was at an absolute premium)?
There are very few people whose time is worth that much that the cost for a concorde ticket is truly justified.

All that said, I would have loved to experience concorde at least once.

concorde carried a premium of about 20% over the normal full fare.

there were other ways to get a ticket more cheaply... with a RTW you could pay a surcharge for Concorde, I think around £1500 over the FRTW and £2250 for the JRTW?

then there were cruise packages... you took the QEII to New York or vv and then flew Concorde the other way.

and for a time you could redeem for 120k QFFF miles for the return.

serivce was provided by BA 757 crews I believe (similarity of cabin).

the food was ok. nothing special except for the flight back to London had a nice beluga caviar service. the breakfasts going over we're fairly average. and for snack you could have the same tired old cucumber, egg, or salmon sarnies they still serve today on BA first.

I think weight was an issue mainly for the Caribbean iirc? however standard stock for those flights was in the order of 100 bottles of champagne (1 per passenger!). I don't know the stocks for New York, but on the scheduled flights (at least in the forward cabin) there wasn't always too much drinking. a man next to me one time went to sleep before takeoff and didn't wake till landing. no food or drink (not that he missed much). but it made it hard for me to get out to go to the WC!

 

[knightman7]

I was lucky enough to fly two sectors on the Concorde. The service on board was excellent, far better than what I have experienced in F these days on some airlines. I also thought the food was good, but I was rather unsophisticated in those days so you can take that judgement with a grain of salt.

Still, to this day it's been the most memorable aviation experience i've had in my life.

 

[Alh01]

It was certainly a brilliant aeroplane, but very noisy. I remember working between the runways at SYD on its first (and only?) visit when it landed. Even for those days of noisy planes, it was far worse than most - ears rang for hours afterwards. Still have a photo of its take-off in the dusty archives somewhere, but had earplugs in for that event.

 

[rlarosa]

From memory, the concorde service was losing tons of money, so BA put the chief pilot in charge. The first thing they did was survey people that had flown concorde as to what they thought the service cost. Many of the people flying had no idea - it was always booked by a PA or similar, so they had a drastically inflated view of what the service cost. So, BA whacked up the prices in line with what people already thought and made the service profitable!

 

[BoyZeus]

Concorde was amazing - Patsy and Eddie never complained.

 

[drewbles]

Concorde was amazing - Patsy and Eddie never complained.

How else is one going to find door handles one quite likes!

 

[BoyZeus]

How else is one going to find door handles one quite likes!

Classic episode

 

[Airbumps]

I've always found it fascinating that commercial aircraft design got so far advanced in such a short period of time, and then, relatively speaking, stalled. For example, think of the improvements in commercial travel from the pre-war to post-war years. Then think the sixties, seventies and eighties ; 727s, 747s, 737s. The difference was huge between the 50s to the late 60s.

Then the fuel/range improvement of all those various models. Then we got Concorde. It was such an advancement on what was present at the time - real cutting edge.

Whats happened since? Sure, we've got aircraft like the 787 made of composite and are cheaper to run, more economical but in terms of that real drive forward we seem to have stalled. Things aren't really faster now than they where 20 years ago. Service and experience is arguably worse than it was 20 years ago. Sure fuel burn and range are better but we haven't really made that next leap. And given Airbus and Boeing's plans for the next 15 years I don't think we'll see it in that time either.

Concorde was a huge leap and, for various reasons, it died.

I've often wondered if the big manufactures see a potential market in super sonic travel, or if they see it as too risky. Is the safer option just to continue with small steps and improved fuel burn of 5%-7% each model?