Friday 11 April 2003 Concorde to be permanently grounded  | British Airways and Air France have announced that the supersonic airliner, Concorde, is to be withdrawn from service in October this year. A British Airways statement said this was for commercial reasons. This report from Elizabeth Blunt: |
 Listen to the story Among the bulbous jumbo jets on the tarmac in London or Paris, Concorde always looked astonishingly small; its slim elegant lines still the most stylish in the airport, even though the design is now more than twenty five years old. And it's still the most prestigious way to fly the Atlantic.
British Airways has managed to make some money from the supersonic airliner indirectly, using the lure of a free upgrade to Concorde to persuade businessmen to insist on BA premium class tickets.
But the plane has never paid its way, and the Air France crash three years ago was a financial disaster; millions of dollars were spent on safety modifications and when the Concorde fleet did come back into service it ran into an economic downturn, the after-effects of the September 11th attacks and now a second Gulf War.
Elizabeth Blunt, BBC Listen to the words bulbous unattractively round and fat in shape lines outline, shape prestigious respected indirectly not straight from the main source but from another source lure attraction for customers upgrade a change to something better than was originally paid for paid its way earned enough money to pay for itself, without needing to borrow or be given money ran into unexpectedly began to experience economic downturn a fall in prices and in the value of stocks and shares after-effects the bad or harmful conditions which resulted from previous events  Read more about this story | |  | | | SEARCH IN LEARNING ENGLISH | | | |
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