Concorde: The 'White Bird' That Stopped Flying
Almost 20 years ago, the Concorde — an "airliner of the future" took its final flight.
Called "the white bird" by the French, the Concorde was a passenger aircraft that could cross the Atlantic faster than any other.
It was developed by the French and British governments, and was so fast — twice the speed of sound — that the British Airways slogan was: "Arrive before you leave," because passengers departing London at 10:30 a.m. would get to New York at 9:25 a.m, local time.
It took the rich and famous halfway around the world, with its first passenger trip in 1976.
But supersonic speed is expensive. It takes a lot of fuel, while only some materials can withstand the heat at such speeds, and the Concorde needed lots of maintenance.
So tickets were expensive. The plane could carry only 100 passengers, and by the early 2000s, tickets were $7,000 to $8,000 for a one-way trip.
Many countries also didn't allow supersonic aircraft in their skies because of the noise.
Then there was the tragic accident in 2000 when an Air France plane taking off from Paris crashed, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground.
No white birds flew for more than a year.
They then returned to the air at a bad time, just two months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York. People didn't feel safe in the air, and few wanted to pay thousands of dollars to get on a plane that had so famously crashed.
So when the final Concorde flight landed in London on October 24, 2003, there would be no more. The white bird was just too expensive to keep in the air.
