The supersonic Concorde enters commercial service
On this day · 21 January 1976
Two needle-nosed jets lifted off from London and Paris at the same moment, carrying paying passengers faster than sound.
On January 21, 1976, the era of supersonic passenger travel began with deliberate symmetry. A British Airways Concorde left London Heathrow and an Air France Concorde left Paris at the same hour, ending a twelve-year Anglo-French collaboration that had often looked like it might never fly.
The inaugural routes were not the famous transatlantic dashes that came later. London’s flight headed for Bahrain in the Persian Gulf; Paris aimed for Rio de Janeiro by way of Dakar in West Africa. Cruising above twice the speed of sound, Concorde could cover those distances in a fraction of the usual time, its slender fuselage and drooping nose unmistakable on any runway.
New York and Washington services followed in the months and years after. For a quarter-century, Concorde remained the only way ordinary ticket-holders could outrun the sound of their own engines, until the fleet retired in 2003.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
