How many Concordes were built?

The Concorde, the product of Franco-British collaboration between Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation, had a very limited total production for such a high-profile and technologically ambitious program.

Of the 20 units built between 1966 and 1979, two were development prototypes —the French 001 and the British 002—, two more were pre-production aircraft used in certification testing, and the remaining 16 were series production. Of those 16 production aircraft, only 14 entered commercial service: the other two never found a definitive operator and ended up on display in museums shortly after leaving the factory.

Despite initial interest from several carriers —including Pan Am, TWA and Japan Airlines, which had reserved delivery slots—, none of them ultimately went through with the purchase after the 1973 oil crisis and the restrictions imposed on supersonic flight over land in the United States. In the end, only Air France and British Airways operated the aircraft in regular service, with seven units each, covering mainly the transatlantic route between Paris or London and New York.

The extremely high operating cost, the Concorde's fuel consumption and the restrictions on supersonic flight over populated areas reduced its potential market to a handful of genuinely profitable routes, which made it unviable to expand production beyond the 20 units already built.