Concorde Still Turn Heads After 25 Years

[afang]

Here is a typical workweek as once described to Mike Bannister, the chief Concorde pilot for British Airways, by a British executive for an American bank.
"Monday morning, leave London on Concorde at 10:30 a.m., arriving in New York at 9:25 a.m. to spend four hours in a conference room at J.F.K.," Captain Bannister recalled last week while waiting at Kennedy International Airport to fly the daily supersonic flight to London.

"Get on the 1:40 p.m. flight back, arriving at 10:30 at night, and home to the wife and kids," he continued, counting off the itinerary points on his fingers. "All day Tuesday in the London office, home that night; Wednesday, again in the London office. Then get on the 7 p.m. flight to New York, arriving at 10 minutes to 6, in time for a business dinner. All day Thursday in the New York office, plus Friday morning, and then back to London on the afternoon flight, arriving at 10:30 at night, and home again to the wife and kiddies."

Now, you and I might regard anyone who performs this kind of grind for the company as a prime candidate for institutionalization. But Captain Bannister's point was that this man was actually lamenting the demise of his back-and-forth routine after Concorde flights were grounded in the summer of 2000, when an Air France Concorde crash killed 113 people in Paris.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/30/business/30TRAV.html

[afang]

Here is a typical workweek as once described to Mike Bannister, the chief Concorde pilot for British Airways, by a British executive for an American bank.
"Monday morning, leave London on Concorde at 10:30 a.m., arriving in New York at 9:25 a.m. to spend four hours in a conference room at J.F.K.," Captain Bannister recalled last week while waiting at Kennedy International Airport to fly the daily supersonic flight to London.

"Get on the 1:40 p.m. flight back, arriving at 10:30 at night, and home to the wife and kids," he continued, counting off the itinerary points on his fingers. "All day Tuesday in the London office, home that night; Wednesday, again in the London office. Then get on the 7 p.m. flight to New York, arriving at 10 minutes to 6, in time for a business dinner. All day Thursday in the New York office, plus Friday morning, and then back to London on the afternoon flight, arriving at 10:30 at night, and home again to the wife and kiddies."

Now, you and I might regard anyone who performs this kind of grind for the company as a prime candidate for institutionalization. But Captain Bannister's point was that this man was actually lamenting the demise of his back-and-forth routine after Concorde flights were grounded in the summer of 2000, when an Air France Concorde crash killed 113 people in Paris.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/30/business/30TRAV.html