Branson puts ideas to Airbus on Concorde LONDON (Reuters) =97 Virgin Atlantic Chairman Richard Branson said on=20 Wednesday the airline had put proposals to aircraft manufacturer Airbus SAS= =20 on ways to keep the needle-nosed supersonic Concorde flying. The British=20 entrepreneur has expressed an interest in buying British Airways' fleet of= =20 the 100-seater planes, the world's only supersonic passenger aircraft,=20 after Europe's biggest airline said it would retire its Concordes in=20 October.BA and Air France are taking their respective Concorde fleets out=20 of service after almost 30 years in the air because of rising maintenance=20 costs, excessive fuel consumption and waning demand for tickets at some=20 $7,000 a seat. "We had a really good meeting, we put some ideas to Airbus=20 to keep Concorde flying and they've gone away to discuss those," Branson=20 said in a statement. "It's unlikely we'll be saying any more on the matter= =20 for some days." Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic is 49%-owned by Singapore=20 Airlines, said earlier this month his airline could make money out of the=20 seven BA Concordes. BA Chief Executive Rod Eddington said on Monday the=20 airline would not reverse its decision to retire Concorde later this year.= =20 BA has plans to put some of its Concordes in museums. An Air France=20 Concorde was destroyed in a fiery Paris crash in July 2000, which damaged=20 confidence in the ageing aircraft. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.caribbeanfloral.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************