Even on the New York route a significant share of the regular traffic was accounted for by a small number of repeat customers travelling on a high frequency basis. When a number of these customers lost their lives in the 9/11 terror attack of 2001, British Airways saw a significant dent in its clientele on the service. //
Concorde, too, enjoyed optimistic production forecasts and received a number of orders from leading global airlines of the time, but when the oil price shocks of the early seventies hit, it all evaporated. Only the then-state airlines of the U.K. and France, the countries producing the aircraft, remained to take a handful of aircraft, effectively being gifted them by their respective governments.
In more recent times and in a different market context, Airbus had strong demand forecasts for the giant A380 and many arguments to support their confidence in these. Once more, circumstances conspired to prove these forecasts to be well short of reality, with production of the aircraft now ended.
Demand projections for a new supersonic airliner 10 years or more into the future can only be treated with extreme caution. I see too many uncertainties and factors mitigating against high demand levels. //
Concorde was sold as a time machine, as would any new supersonic airliner. Customers are paying for speed and if that cannot be delivered on a reliable and consistent basis then the whole raison d’etre is lost.
The reality is that there are always teething problems and even when bedded in, technical glitches and operational problems occur on a daily basis. BA had spare capacity built into its Concorde fleet and all aircraft operated primarily out of its Heathrow base. United’s plans, by contrast, call for a small, dispersed fleet operating in multiple markets including trans-Pacific and transatlantic routes. This looks like a recipe for complexity in terms of crew and engineering resources and spares inventories, risking fragile reliability of operation while also adding to operational costs.
