BBC News | In Depth | Concorde retirement

On October 24 the world will bid farewell to the Concorde supersonic aircraft as British Airways operates its final Concorde flight. The Concorde is the last evidence remaining from an era when the human race was thrilled by technological achievement. Today technological marvels like a 2.5-hour trans-Atlantic crossing are secondary in importance to financial concerns.

Nowhere is is more evident that we have forgotten our way than this sad retirement. We achieved this glorious accomplishment and designed a plane which was both beautiful and incredibly fast. And instead of investing in it to mass-produce it so it could be used for more than just a few trans-Atlantic flights, we didn’t bother. Hundreds of Concordes should have been built in the 1980s, and today we could fly from LAX to Boston in under 2 hours. It would have revolutionized the air travel industry. But nobody did it. Too much initial investment. We’ll just stick with our antiquated technology because it’s cheap.

It is downright sad that we haven’t had any real technological advancement in aviation since the Concorde. If things had been handled correctly, supersonic flight would be feasible for all airlines and passengers.

Now the Concorde is being retired, leaving no successor. If this logic had been applied to ground transport, automobiles would have been phased out in the 1930s because they were “too expensive and not safe” and we would all be riding horses to work.