British Airways and Air France said on Thursday they will mothball their fuel-guzzling Concorde fleets at the end of October, ending 27 years of supersonic commercial air travel.
The only two airlines that fly the Concorde said the decision to retire the sleek needle-nosed jets was due to deteriorating revenues on transatalantic routes against a backdrop of rising maintenance costs.
The news comes almost three years after an Air France Concorde crashed near Paris and killed 113 people, forcing both the British and French carriers to pay for costly modifications.
British Airways, Europe's biggest airline, said retiring its seven Concordes would result in pounds 84 million ($130.5 million) of write-off costs to be booked in the fiscal year.
"This is the end of a fantastic era in world aviation but bringing forward Concorde's retirement is a prudent business decision at a time when we are having to make difficult decisions right across the airline," British Airways chief executive Rod Eddington said in a statement.
Air France said it was halting Concorde flights from May 31 due to the tough economic conditions, but added it could restart flights between May and October if the economy picked up.
Air France chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta said: "The economic deterioration seen in recent months has led to a drop in business travel which particularly weighed on the results of Concorde."
The Concorde has always been linked in the public eye to champagne-quaffing, lobster-dining superstars whose fast lifestyles require travel at twice the speed of sound.
But in reality, analysts estimate about 80 per cent of Concorde's passengers were business travellers.
Falling stock markets, a drought in mergers and acquisitions and weak economies have forced City of London and Wall Street banks to cut tens of thousands of jobs.
© 2025