Profile: As Concorde heads for retirement, the beautiful aircraft that halved the time of transatlantic travel will be missed by many, not just those who could afford its decadent flights, writes Róisín Ingle
Those who feel frazzled by the hectic pace of modern life should greet Concorde's demise with relief. Whatever you think about an aircraft that was only ever available to the elite of international society and boasts a patchy economic and environmental record, the world will be a far slower place without it.
"Essentially what Concorde is is a time machine, a wonderful time machine," said the chairman of British Airways, Lord Marshall, one of the top executives who decided to retire the company's seven-strong fleet for mainly economic reasons.
The final flight will take off from John F. Kennedy International Airport, in New York, on Friday, bound for London Heathrow. Thousands are expected to turn out at each end.
It has always been about speed. Concorde's cruises above the ocean at twice the speed of sound, or 1,350 miles per hour. It travels 3,600 miles in three hours and 15 minutes - faster than a bullet from a rifle. The subsonic and far less glamorous Boeing 747 takes twice as long.
British Airways has been charging more than €8,500 for the privilege of hitching a ride on the world's only supersonic passenger aircraft. Powered by four Rolls-Royce engines, Concorde has been hailed as a triumph in engineering but an economic and environmental disaster.
Guzzling 5,638 gallons of fuel an hour and emitting ozone-damaging nitrogen oxide, the service has always had its detractors, but the need for speed among elite travellers allowed BA to turn a profit despite the astronomical price.
In the 1990s Oasis, the Britpop band, sang about "feeling supersonic", and Concorde has always carried precious celebrity cargo, with vintage champagne the free-flowing tipple of choice on board. Mike Tyson flew Concorde on his way to England for his championship fight, with customs officers going on board to search him before he was allowed to leave the plane. Diana Ross was arrested after she allegedly assaulted a female security officer on arriving in London by Concorde. Victoria Beckham used it to attend wedding-dress fittings in New York, and as a junior minister Geoff Hoon, Britain's Secretary of State for Defence, won himself the label Junket Geoff because of his fondness for supersonic travel.
Perhaps most famously, the aircraft allowed the musician Phil Collins to attend both the London and Philadelphia legs of the Live Aid concerts in 1985. Queen Elizabeth was a fan, and the late Queen Mother is said to have celebrated her 85th birthday by taking in Concorde's famous view of Earth's curve from the jump seat of the cockpit. Another royal, Sarah Ferguson, said it allowed her to take her children to school at 8.30 a.m and still be in Manhattan for her WeightWatchers meetings at 9.30 a.m.
The famous slogan "Get there before you arrive" was no idle boast.
In 1969 the world saw the first man on the moon and witnessed the maiden voyage of Concorde, a craft that had been years in development.
British and French engineers beat the Americans and the Russians (Concordski, anyone?), who had both tried and failed to lead the field of supersonic travel. With a nose more famous than Napoleon's - it droops on take-off and landing so the pilot can see the runway - and trademark swept wings, it is the stunningly designed, enduring symbol of air travel as a luxury event.
The name is said to have been arrive at after airline executives were thumbing through a copy of Roget's Thesaurus; the adding of the "e" was always contentious, agreed on by the British only some years after the first flights.
The gas-guzzling machine - the 100- passenger craft used four times more fuel than a 400-seater 747 - was launched commercially during the 1970s, at the height of the fuel crisis, and its consumption meant it could never economically enter the lucrative trans-Pacific market. That it was infeasible to reach supersonic speeds over land - the sonic boom is too loud and can be heard 11 miles below - meant the transcontinental market was also not an option.
Air France flew its last Concorde back in May, never having recovered from the crash in Paris in June 2000. More than 100 people on board and four on the ground were killed after the plane took a fatal dive just after taking off. A strip of metal on the runway punctured one of the tyres. It proved the beginning of the end for supersonic travel as we have come to know and marvel at it.
Despite Air France investing millions in safety upgrades, when Concorde took to the air again, after September 11th, international air travel had dramatically reduced, and the war in Iraq saw an increase in fuel prices. Both factors are blamed for BA's decision to discontinue its service.
While debate about whether it's right that Concorde should be confined to the great aircraft hangar in the sky continues, the issue has led some commentators to suggest that supersonic travel was way ahead of its time. A technological innovation in the right place at the wrong time, a case of too much boom, too soon.
Some observers maintain that Concorde's history is similar to an imagined scenario where the mobile phone is introduced to an elite few in the 1930s, only to be withdrawn because it is not commercially viable and relaunched in the 1990s, when the tool fits seamlessly into society.
Experts say that with the departure of Concorde, supersonic travel is not something today's adults will see again in their lifetime. Saving money is now more important than saving time, as the massive growth in low-fares airlines testifies. The result is that this miraculous "time machine" becomes a museum piece. "It's almost Luddite that something like this is coming to an end, a bit like making the wheel square," the journalist David Frost, a regular flyer, has said.
Sir Richard Branson of Virgin is said to have tried to buy BA's Concorde fleet for £1, the nominal amount the British government allowed BA to purchase Concorde for originally. Calling the retirement of the aircraft "an act of industrial vandalism", he later offered €7 million for the fleet but was knocked back in what some dismissed as just another PR stunt by the airline tycoon.
By rights the passing of Concorde should be mourned only by the rich, the famous and those with bottomless expense accounts. Not so. The Great White Bird, as it was named by the French, is an icon for technological advancement, more space shuttle than aircraft, that won the hearts of people who could never even dream of nibbling beluga caviar on its leather seats.
There is no doubting the affection of Britons, in particular, for what one newspaper recently dubbed the People's Concorde. Stating that British taxpayers had spent hundreds of millions of pounds first developing and then maintaining the fleet, the Sunday Express mounted a campaign last August to try to save the supersonic craft. The newspaper even offered readers Save Our Concorde bumper stickers. Please allow 28 days for delivery, the editorial advised.
The Concorde File
What is it?
The only supersonic passenger aircraft
Why is it in the news?
British Airways is retiring its costly fleet. The final New York-London crossing is on Friday
Most appealing characteristic
It slices the time for transatlantic flying in half
Least appealing characteristic
The €8,500 ticket price
Passengers are most likely to say
Mach 2? More champagne, darling!
Passengers are least likely to say
Mach 2? Isn't that a razor, darling?