Peter Stickney wrote:

In article ,
Pooh Bear writes:
Peter Stickney wrote:

In article ,
Pooh Bear writes:

BA actually made good money on Concorde for a significant number of years -
hence why they were keen to get it fixed and re-introduced after the Paris
crash. They had the interiors refitted too.Of course 9/11 had reduced passenger
numbers by the time it was back in service.

The made money on it - only after the R&D and production funds were
written off by the Government, and British Airways was basically made
a gisft of them. They made enough out of them to pay the operating
costs, but nowhere near enough to cover development and construction.

Agreed, but that wasn't their problem.

Actually, I'd say that it is. In the Real World, it still costs money
to develop and produce something. That money gets paid out no matter
what. If you can't make it back, its a net loss of resources.
Now, I suppose that you could subscribe to the delusion that
Government Money isn't really money, and so doesn't matter, but even
the most Ardent Socialist would agree that it is a marker for
resources spent that could have been spent otherwise. How many Dog
Shelters in Battersea, or Labour Exchanges in East Acton could have
been supported with the dosh that was dumped into Concorde?

In the short term, yes you could have had more dog shelters.

If you want to talk about employment exchanges, I suggest you consider how Margaret
Thatcher's industrial policies ( large scale unemployment to cripple the left ) were
funded by North Sea oil revenues ( taxes ).

In the long term, Concorde paved the way for Airbus.

Without Airbus there would be no European aviation industry of note.

I doubt that anyone could have truly seen that far ahead - but the mould was cast back
then.


Graham