1976 Concorde commercial flight
Alongside BOAC and Pan Am, Air France (AF) outlined its interest well ahead of the development of the Franco-British supersonic airliner project, signing an reservation for six airplanes on 03 June 1963. In 1964, the airline placed an order for a further two airframes. However on 28 July 1972, the company committed itself for four Concordes. Ever since the relation of Air France and its supersonic aircraft has been specific. Until the last decade, almost all the newly-appointed CEOs asked to survey whether keeping Concorde was still viable. And yet, the aircraft is still there with the airline and from the ramp agent to the CEO, from the young stewardess to the senior Captain, the airplane still generates the early days' passion and everyone still watches Concorde take off? The 1970s The first aircraft, F-BVFA (c/n 205) was delivered to Air France at Toulouse. A few proving and training flights were performed before the entry in commercial service. Before the beginning of commercial operations, Air France takes delivery of the Aerospatiale Concorde F-BTSC (c/n 203) on 06 January 1976. But the airline is due to return the aircraft when all of its airplanes would be delivered. F-BTSC, initially intended for Pan Am, was 970kg heavier than the other Concordes (like G-BOAC) being a 100 version. On a typical CDG-JFK flight, Sierra Charlie was burning 700kg more fuel. Since both British Airways and Air France had been denied access to the United States' Congress for environmental reasons about a month before the beginning of the operations, the French carrier decided to launch its first supersonic flights to Rio de Janeiro (GIG), via Dakar (DKR) with two weekly frequencies (AF085). On 21 January 1976, F-BVFA and G-BOAA took off simultaneously, inaugurating the era of commercial supersonic travel. Concorde F-WTSB was lent to Air France for commercial operations. But the airplane could not fly passengers, since it simply had no Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA).
On 04 February 1976, the US Secretary of Transportation William Coleman approved each supersonic carrier to operate two daily flights to New York and a single daily flight to WashingtonD.C. for a trial period of 16 months. But the Port of New York Authority (PONYA) banned all supersonic flights from New York (JFK) on the basis Concorde was generating too much noise for the surrounding populations. On 08 April of the same year, Air France took delivery of F-BVFB (c/n 207) and inaugurated a new route to Caracas (CCS) the next day. The weekly flight required a technical stop in Santia Maria in the Azores. In May, the US Department of Transportation (DoT) approved Air France and British Airways with a special permission for a supersonic flight to Washington (IAD), as the US government was directly managing Dulles airport. On 24 May, an Air France and a BA Concorde landed simultaneously at the US capital's international airport. BI would fly the Concordes with its own technical and commercial crew. Beginning with three weekly flights, Air France later upgraded the service to four weekly. On 13 August, F-BVFC (c/n 209) was delivered to Air France and F-BTSC was returned to Aerospatiale on 08 December. The airplane was no longer required and had already left the regular operations of the airline for a special tour in November. On 10 February 1977, the US carrier Braniff (BI) filed an application to operate interchange flights with both British Airways and Air France' Concordes from IAD onto Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) six times a week. On 26 March 1977, Fox Delta was delivered to Air France and entered in revenue service the following to JFK. But only a few months after its delivery, on 28 November, the airplane was involved in a heavy landing at Dakar (DKR): its vertical speed was of 14 feet per second at touchdown , while the standard limit stands 10 feet per second. The aircraft had the tailwheel crushed and the rear of the engines scrapped over several hundred feet. However Fox Delta's keel beam had bent out by the accident, progressively reducing the airplane's range. The 22 November 1977 marked an important event for Concorde and both operators. After years of harsh lobbying and thanks to a court ruling proving Concorde could be slightly quieter than a 747 with an adequate approach Air France made a dual inauguration of the JFK route with its British counterpart. Both carriers finally could operate on the route for which their aircraft had been designed. The flight AF001 bound for JFK departed at 11:00 and landed at 08:48 local time ? three minutes in late, inaugurating a westbound schedule that would remain unchanged for close to 23 years. The flights were operated on a daily from day one. On 18 September 1978, Air France took delivery of F-BTSD (c/n 213), initially registered as F-WJAM, as leased aircraft and started continuation flights from Washington to Mexico City (MEX) two days later with Fox Charlie and Jean-Paul Le Moel and Guillaume Tardieu in the cockpit. MEX is then served twice a week. On 12 January 1979, the Air France Concorde fleet received a US registration required for the interchange services with Braniff: F-BVFC (N94FC), FD (N94FD), F-BTSD (N94SD). After the type received the FAA approval on 09 January, Fox Charlie was the first aircraft to take part to the dual operations on 12 January. Since the law forbid supersonic flights over the US territory, BI would fly the airplanes at M0.90 on the IAD-DFW-IAD segments. Out of the five weekly services, two were operated by Air France Concordes. [Braniff - Concorde] N94SD was re-registered as F-BTSD and returned to Aerospatiale on 12 March 1979. On 14 June 1979, two of F-BVFC's tires blew off and badly damaged the wing (with an important fuel leak). Fortunately, Fox Charlie was able to land. But the aircraft needed repair and Air France had then only four Concordes delivered. Thus the airline took over F-BTSC (c/n 203), which it had previously used in 1976. Sierra Charlie was delivered to Air France on 17 June 1979 and ordered on 14 April 1980 for sale. On 21 September 1979, the French and British government agreed on halting the Concorde production and placing the unsold aircraft with their respective flag-carriers. The five airplanes involved would be sold for a symbolic French Franc. Air France was "sold" the three airplanes it had on lease on 23 October 1980: F-BVFF, F-BTSD (leased since 09 May 1980) and F-BTSC. André Turcat himself handed over the keys of one Concorde against one French Franc to Captain Guillaume Tardieu. F-BTSC had been converted to full production standards (100 to 101) in June 1980. F-BTSC ran off the runway after an RTO on 23 July 1980 at Rio de Janeiro (GIG). The 1980s After a period a steady growth, the Concorde division at Air France had seven airplanes operating on four routes, in addition to the DFW Braniff flights. The 1980s and its declining economic climate would be less favorable to the airliner, however. The schedules were dramatically cut in the early 1980s, as load factors were progressively eroding. Paradoxically, the Concorde flights became viable as the sky-high 1970s fuel prices started to fall off. With its important financial troubles, Braniff dropped the Concorde operations on 01 June 1980. The same day, all Concordes got their French registration back. On 29 March 1981, the CDG-IAD-MEX route was dropped in favor of two weekly CDG-JFK-IAD and two weekly CDG-JFK-MEX flights, thus increasing the number of JFK flights from 7 to 11 per week. Air France discontinued its Concorde services to Caracas (CCS) and Rio de Janeiro (GIG) respectively on 27 March and 01 April 1982. IAD and MEX were eventually dropped altogether respectively on 29 and 31 October 1982, leaving JFK as the airline's sole supersonic destination, with frequencies down from 11 to 7 flights a week again. Nonetheless, on 13 March the speed record was broken at 1732.6km/h on a flight to CCS. Fewer flights meant fewer airplanes needed. As the market for chartered flight was still not extensively developed, Air France found itself with more aircraft than required. The first decision was to withdraw the damaged F-BVFD after its last flight on 27 May 1982, with only 5,821 flight hours. At that stage, it had become necessary to make an expensive retrofit of the aircraft, as Fox Delta had almost no longer sufficient range for the CDG-JFK leg. F-BTSC was grounded on 01 November 1982 and F-BTSD on 20 November 1982. The latter two were respectively brought back to service on 28 April 1986 and 03 August 1983 as other Concordes were undergoing maintenance checks. On 02 May 1989, Sierra Charlie transported Pope John-Paul II from La Réunion (RUN) to Lusaka (LUN) with a supersonic flight time of 01:19.
