Why did Concorde stop flying?

Concorde stopped flying on October 24, 2003, when British Airways operated its last commercial service; Air France had retired it on May 31. Those aircraft were between 23 and 27 years old, built on technology frozen in the late 1960s: avionics no one still manufactured and a structure requiring increasingly costly inspections. Airbus, responsible for support as the successor of Aérospatiale and British Aircraft Corporation, announced in 2003 that it would no longer maintain the certification, and no commercial aircraft can fly without a manufacturer behind it.

The Anglo-French program cost far more than planned, and the two governments eventually handed the aircraft over to their flag carriers. Even so, operating a Concorde was extremely expensive: at Mach 2 and 60,000 ft (18,000 m) altitude, its four Olympus engines burned fuel per passenger at a rate several times that of a 747, and the plane could only fly over water because the sonic boom was banned over land. British Airways managed to make it profitable as a luxury product between London and New York; Air France, with less premium traffic, kept it going with difficulty.

Two events sealed its fate. The crash of Air France Flight 4590 at Gonesse on July 25, 2000, forced the fleet to be grounded for over a year and the fuel tanks and tires to be modified at great expense. When the aircraft returned to service in November 2001, the September 11 attacks had emptied transatlantic business class, and occupancy never recovered. With revenue falling, maintenance costs rising, and the manufacturer withdrawing support, the two airlines announced the end of operations on April 10, 2003. Today the 18 surviving Concordes are displayed in museums across Europe and the United States.