The Concorde is a beautiful plane. So was the Concordski, but the Russians stopped flying & subsidizing that after a few years. It just wasn't economical. Neither is the Concorde. The List has gone over the safety issues of the Concorde before and no matter what side you come down on, it is clear that these planes are not going to last forever. Better to pull them now. When planes crash, people die. Beautiful objects are works of art; they are not necessarily safe aircraft. The Concorde belongs in museums. (I saw a Concorde and the Braniff Flying Colors 727 on the same day at Dulles; at least Air France and British Air are giving the Concordes better treatment than Braniff gave Flying Colors.) I am not sure what you are referring to about cutting load factors or lightening cabins, (the Boeing SST would have been large enough to make money, but the banks & the US government just didn't think it was a good bet) but think about this: The Concorde is one plane, going back to the 1950's in planning with a prototype flight in 1969. In that era, Douglas launched 5 versions of the DC-9, and then several versions of the MD-80/90, and now the MD 95 (a.k.a. Boeing 717) -- all versions of that original DC-9, but adding new technology, improving engines, wings, etc. Or the endless 737 family. Boeing still produces 737's because it keeps improving them (now Boeing needs to do more, but that is the same point). You can't take a single airplane, no matter how good or beautiful it is, plop it down, make only internal changes, and think that that plane is going to last forever. Saying that is neither anti-French, nor anti-British. So yes, let the Concorde end its US run at Dulles. Celebrate the achievement, mourn its end, and hope for something better. john On Mon, 2 Jun 2003, Alireza Alivandivafa wrote: > The first US scheduled Concorde flights were to IAD, and now AF is > ending there. This is just terrible. I wish someone would subsidize > the continued use of this plane (Like the god known as Branson). It > sucks that these anti-French idiots cut the load factors on the AF > Concorde 102s and that AF was unable to complete the lightening of the > the cabins to allow more seats to be sold. I am not sighing, I am > crying. > > Alireza > -- John F. Kurtzke, C.S.C. Department of Mathematics 278 Buckley Center University of Portland Portland, OR 97203 503-943-7377 kurtzke@xxxxxx