This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Near the End, It's Mach for the Masses April 17, 2003 By GREG RETSINAS For 27 years, the name Concorde has summoned images of an exclusive supersonic clientele: supermodels thumbing through magazines that may feature them on the cover; ambassadors who insist on being seated in 1A or 1B; actors who ask the cabin crew to make sure the seat next to them stays empty; and businessmen for whom time is most certainly money. But that is not quite the case these days, the Concorde's last. The passenger manifest for London-bound British Airways Flight 2 on Tuesday included a 28-year-old man who had saved up frequent-flier miles for three years specifically to fly the Concorde one-way; a couple who put off a driving tour of the Deep South to fly supersonic instead; a Concorde veteran who decided to take the wife and kids along this time; and a man who got a ticket as a surprise 50th birthday gift three days ago. With last week's announcement by British Airways and Air France that the Concorde would be shutting down this year, changes have occurred within the cabins of the fleet of 12 graceful yet aging jets that can fly from Kennedy Airport to London in 3 hours 16 minutes (Paris takes a few minutes more). To begin with, they are filling up. While only 33 of the plane's 100 ink-blue Connolly leather seats were full on Tuesday - on par with what the airline was seeing before last week's announcement - bookings are increasing. British Airways, which plans to stop flights on Oct. 25, sold 2,000 tickets in two days. This Sunday, 84 seats will be filled; on Monday, there will be just five empty seats. Air France reported 500 new bookings in the two days after the end-of-service announcement. The final Air France flight to Paris on May 30 is sold out, and others close to that date are filling up. The renewed interest at each airline is not enough to stave off the Concorde's demise, however, as both airlines say they are losing tens of millions of dollars annually by offering Concorde service. But the rarefied culture of the cabins is changing in these last days, too. Of course, it is still hugely expensive, with an average round-trip ticket roughly $6,000. But to some, this stratospheric price tag seems affordable when viewed not as a routine convenience but as a once-in-a-lifetime, now-or-never, back-to-the-future splurge. The travelers filling the seats are not only celebrities or supermodels or the simply very rich, but perhaps a more motley crew, many nearly giddy about the prospect of living for several hours in luxury. "People used to dress up to take the Concorde - jewels, dress, nice coats. Those days are gone. Now, people come in jeans," said Jacques Malot, the longtime Air France station manager at Kennedy Airport, who served as Concorde flight operations manager for several years. He could have been complaining about air travel in general. Once, flying was a special occasion, and men wore jackets and ties before taking to the skies. The Concorde seemed to be the last bastion of that era. Wearing pants with a Burberry pattern that sort of resembled pajama bottoms, David Bowman, 28, of Scarsdale, scoffed at the notion of a dress code. Three years ago, Mr. Bowman, an aviation buff who had a summer internship in college tinkering with Navy F-18's at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis, decided he wanted to fly the Concorde. So he got a British Airways Visa card that accumulated frequent-flier miles with each dollar spent. And spend he did: Gifts for his girlfriend, dinners, drinks for everyone, until a few months ago he reached 112,000 miles. Exactly 110,000 miles got him Tuesday's trip on the Concorde to London and, in a month, a return trip on a regular British Airways flight in business class. Mr. Bowman could hardly contain his enthusiasm as boarding time approached. He stared out the window from the lounge as the plane was fueled, making him the last to board. A flight attendant noted that he had come dangerously close to missing his dream flight. Joseph E. Thompson, an engineering industry consultant from Potomac, Md., was flying on Tuesday as well. He was not quite as giddy as Mr. Bowman, but he was close. Mr. Thompson was about to take his 10th Concorde flight, but this one would be special. Spurred by last week's news, Mr. Thompson used his frequent-flier miles for tickets for his wife, his 17-year-old son, J. T., and one of his son's friends, Nathan Brill, also 17. Remembering his first Concorde flight, he said: "It was more than I expected. You fully see the curvature of the earth. You see that the earth is really round. Just like the explorers found out, but you really get to see it for yourself." It's the ultimate experience, Mr. Thompson said. "I'm going to miss it because from an engineering standpoint, it's a marvel." "I wanted to take these guys because I don't think there'll be anything like this," Mr. Thompson added, referring to his son and his son's friend. The family flew from Washington to New York on Monday night and stayed in a hotel. Both teenagers noted, as teenagers will, that if they had left Washington for London directly Monday night, they would have arrived there by morning. But they would have missed out on the Concorde. In the lavish lounge, with a white rose atop every table, Will Forrest raised a glass of Champagne almost in a mournful toast over a gourmet breakfast of Irish bacon and vegetarian baked beans. Mr. Forrest, a Deloitte & Touche consultant who lives in Chelsea, said the news that the Concordes were being retired was surprising and grim. "Never in my life did I think we'd be going backwards," he said. "This must have been what the Dark Ages were like." He also compared the Concorde's demise to the collapse of Ricochet, a wireless Internet network that shut down its Manhattan connections in 2001 when its parent company went bankrupt. Mr. Forrest and his partner, Mark Smithe, a furniture retailer in Chicago, were about to embark last week on a driving tour from Chicago through the South, ending at Oxford, Miss. Instead, when they heard last week's announcement, they scrapped their idea of an economical vacation and bought two tickets on Tuesday's Concorde. It would be Oxford, England, instead. For those who could not afford the flight, simply watching the jet was thrill enough. Several of the planes will be given to aeronautic museums after they are retired. "It's a beautiful-looking plane," said Phyllis Bellofatto of Greenwich, Conn., watching Tuesday's 9 a.m. take-off while waiting for her America West flight to Las Vegas. "I wasn't going to fly it, but it was always exciting to know if I wanted to, I could." Beautiful, but an economic failure. In an industry battered by the Sept. 11 attacks, worldwide economic woes, a drop in high-end corporate travel and war in Iraq, the Concorde, with its few seats, few flights and significant maintenance and fuel costs, was a predictable casualty. Charter flights, a big moneymaker that attracted clients ranging from corporations to wealthy retirees, stopped in July 2000, when a chartered Air France Concorde crashed, killing 113 and grounding the fleet for 16 months. Last week's announcement of the end of all Concorde service confirmed wide speculation, supported by tales from passengers on flying on quarter-full of half-full flights. It will cost Air France and British Airways a total of nearly $200 million to retire their dozen Concordes. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/17/nyregion/17CONC.html?ex=1051584774&ei=1&en=c8cfad442cdb31ed HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@xxxxxxxxxxx or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@xxxxxxxxxxxx Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company