The Last Flight of the Concorde

Today, nearly 10 years after the crash of a Concorde supersonic jetliner in Paris that killed 113 people, a trial to assign responsibility for the accident is getting underway in France. The crash of the Air France Concorde in a plume of fire just after take-off on July 25, 2000, helped put an end to the Concorde and the era of supersonic luxury passenger service. At issue is whether carelessness by Continental Airlines workers caused debris from a Continental aircraft on the runway to puncture fuel tanks on the Concorde. Continental strongly denies the charge.

News of the trial sends my mind racing back to Concorde, the stunningly gorgeous, delta-wing, needle-nosed jetliner that flew commercially from 1976 to 2003, until lingering fears from the 2000 crash combined with recessionary post-Sept. 11 economics to ground the Concorde for good. As it happens, I was on the very last scheduled commercial flight of the Concorde, British Airways flight 002, which zoomed from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow International Airport on Oct. 24, 2003, carrying 100 half-smiley, half-teary, totally excited passengers. (Air France stopped its Concorde service on May 31.)

Everyone on board that day knew the likes of Concorde would not come again for a long while. Even one-way ticket prices north of $6,000 USD to cross the Atlantic didn't allow BA and Air France, the only two airlines ever to fly the Concorde, to recoup the astronomically high costs of fuel needed to operate a combined fleet of 14 Concordes. The 1970s technologies of the Concorde were very fuel-inefficient, and the ear-pounding booms when the plane broke the sound barrier prompted authorities to severely restrict how long and at what speeds the Concorde was allowed to fly over land. That, too, undermined the economics of flying the plane, which had been built with billions of taxpayers' pounds and francs.

I was in the last row of the plane when we took off shortly after sunrise, television camera crews racing in trucks along the runway at JFK to record take-off. As soon as the seatbelt signs blinked off and BA captain Michael Bannister welcomed everyone on board, passengers began popping up, taking each other's photographs in the narrow single aisle, heads bent beneath the low overhead bins, clinking flutes of Champagne as BA flight attendants wriggled past to commence the meal and beverage service. There were lobster fish cakes on the menu, and wild mushroom truffled omelets, and smoked Scottish salmon with caviar. I sipped Pol Roger Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill 1986, one of three Champagnes served that day.

We presslings were seated in the rear cabin of the aircraft; celebrity guests were up front in the first cabin, at safe remove from the journalists. I spotted David Frost, a regal Joan Collins, a chipper and pretty Christie Brinkley. It was a rollicking party all the way across the pond for about three and a half hours - three hours faster than normal aircraft could make the trip. As advertised, the skies were darker when we reached cruising altitude of 57,000 feet and we could see the curvature of the earth, though barely - it was a less dramatic sight than I expected. Also as advertised, the windows felt warm, almost hot, to the touch, thanks to the Mach 2 top speed: 1,350 miles per hour. I had a window seat, so I was nicely positioned to enjoy the special effects.

Captain Bannister brought the plane in low and slow down the Thames, heading east past Buckingham Palace and Big Ben before turning west toward Heathrow. Our plane was the last of three Concordes to land in quick succession, the first two having flown around Britain before returning to Heathrow. At the airport, there was a red carpet rolled out to the foot of the aircraft and scads of spectators taking photos and videos; some airport workers stood on the rooftops to have a last look at the fastest and most beautiful passenger jet ever built. At the head of the red carpet, disembarking passengers were greeted by the dignified Lord Marshall of Knightsbridge, BA's chairman. The red carpet led into a big tented area where one found abundant finger food and, of course, more Champagne. I wandered about for a bit, then headed out of the tent - there was, to my surprise, no customs or immigration inspection - and over to my car for the slow glide into London and the posh comforts of the London Ritz Hotel.

It all seems like a long time ago now. I read that assorted entrepreneurs are planning to build a new generation of supersonic passenger jets - though these will probably be private jets and fly at speeds of Mach 1. If and when that happens, it will be a back to the future moment.

90 Years of International Flight

International air travel began 90 years ago today, on Aug. 25, 1919, when George Stevenson-Reece ponied up about 44 British pounds to become the first (and only) paying passenger on the first regularly scheduled commercial international flight. It went from Hounslow Heath airstrip near London to Le Bourget Airport, Paris.

Stevenson-Reece flew on a direct ancestor of today's British Airways, called Aircraft Transport and Travel Ltd. The rickety aircraft carried only Stevenson-Reece and the pilot, Capt. E.H. Lawford. The flight, carried out with the aid of a compass and visual sightings of landmarks on the ground, took 2 hours and 30 minutes, more than three times longer than the trip takes now.

Stevenson-Reece was a reporter for the London Standard, the only evening daily newspaper still publishing in the British capital. He or his newspaper paid the rather hefty fare, which would cost 1,706 pounds (about $2,800 USD) in today's money.

To mark the 90th anniversary of the occasion, BA put out a press release and the Standard sent one of its current reporters, Nick Curtis, aloft in a still-airworthy version of the Airco de Havilland 4A plane used on that first flight. Curtis didn't get to go to Paris, but he did get a nice ride above the Kent countryside, noting in his story that:

"Stevenson-Reece carried newspapers, a brace of grouse for the British ambassador Lord Derby, and some Devonshire cream for a restaurant suffering from a post-war lack of ingredients.''

The launch of international flying changed travel forever, although widespread commercial passenger service didn't really take off until after World War II.

In the 90 years since that history-making flight, BA - Britain's nationally owned flag carrier from 1940 till it was privatized by Margaret Thatcher's Tory government in 1987 - made itself into one of the world's most distinguished airlines. It has often been an innovator:

In 1952, BA predecessor British Overseas Airways Corporation launched what BA tabs "the world's first pure jet service,'' flying between London and Johannesburg.

In 1958, BOAC started the first transatlantic commercial jet service, from London Airport (as Heathrow was then quaintly and memorably called) to New York's Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International).

In 1976, BA and Air France created the first and so far only supersonic jet passenger service, with the Concorde, which flew until 2003.

As it happens, I was aboard the last regularly scheduled Concorde ever flown, in the last of three Concordes that arched 11 miles high from JFK to Heathrow before touching down for the last time. BA laid on a party, complete with huge tented area and red carpet, at Heathrow. I imagine the final passenger manifest - which included David Frost, Joan Collins, Christie Brinkley and Piers Morgan, for celebrity-watchers out there - was carefully vetted in New York. At least I hope so, because I walked out of the party, out of the airport and to a waiting car without going through British Customs. It was an amazing feeling to just stroll into the United Kingdom.

In 2000, BA made another change, introducing the world's first fully flat-bed seat in business class, a move that has certainly caught on widely in long-haul travel.

In 2008, BA opened state-of-the-art Terminal 5, a classy new facility at generally woebegone Heathrow. The new terminal had a rocky opening but has largely stabilized. It saw 20 million custiomers in its first year of operation.

So, congrats, BA. And cheers, George Stevenson-Reece, wherever you are.