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this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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Futurology
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An interesting perspective that I heard once is that it was the Fax Machine that killed the Concorde. Before faxes, people (businesses) had to physically transport documents, which meant that for large financial companies in Wall St and the London City the Concorde was a great business tool and worth the expense. When the documents you're carrying enable signing a multi-million business deal in the same day, a £6000 ticket is a completely reasonable business expense.
The fax machine rendered that business need obsolete, and leisure travellers can deal with an extra few hours to cross the Atlantic.
I like that theory.
Reading through Wikipedia, Concorde was more expensive to develop than planned, and the expectation was for 350 orders, but in the end only 20 were built. They stopped building them almost 25 years before they stopped flying, so I'd guess it was a combination of factors.
Perhaps the lack of actual orders after initial interest was due to the uptake of fax machines, which would have reduced the interest from passengers and therefore airlines.