What is the Concorde aircraft?

The Concorde originated from an agreement between the French and British governments, signed in 1962, to jointly develop a passenger aircraft capable of flying faster than sound. It was built by the Aérospatiale (part of what is now Airbus) and British Aircraft Corporation consortiums, and its first test flight took place in 1969. It entered commercial service in 1976, operated solely by Air France and British Airways, the only two airlines that ever flew it with paying passengers.

Its elongated shape, the drooping nose that improved visibility during takeoff and landing, and its delta wings were aerodynamic solutions for flying at cruise speeds of Mach 2.04, about 2,180 km/h, more than double that of a subsonic commercial aircraft. It also flew at a cruising altitude of about 18,300 m (60,000 ft), well above conventional air traffic, and carried between 92 and 128 passengers depending on each airline's configuration. That speed allowed it to cross the Atlantic in just over three hours, but required a narrow cabin, with no room for the large bypass engines that make a conventional jet so efficient today.

The Concorde was never broadly profitable: only 20 aircraft were built, of which 14 were production aircraft delivered to the two airlines, due to the noise of its sonic boom, which prevented it from flying at supersonic speed over land, and a fuel consumption far higher than an equivalent subsonic aircraft. The Air France accident in Paris in 2000, which killed 113 people, accelerated its definitive retirement in 2003. Its departure left commercial aviation without any supersonic aircraft in regular service, a situation that remains unchanged more than two decades later.