FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1976
1976 - 0090.PDF
IF CONCORDE OPERATIONS BY Air France and British Airways make a profit, few longe-range international carriers will be able to remain subsonic. But if super sonic services prove to be un economic, assembly will most certainly cease before 16 produc tion aircraft have been completed. Although politics have always played, and will continue to play, an important part in the progress of the Western world's first super sonic transport, operating econ omics will be the final arbiter between success and failure. If Concorde, which was designed from the outset to make a profit, fails to live up to expectations it is highly unlikely that'the Tu-144 will fill the gap. Not only will suc cess spur the development of Concorde derivatives such as the proposed Al and B versions, but there will be a second-generation machine. In any event, Concorde will have the Western market to itself for over a decade and, having re-established Europe as a supplier of long-range airliners, could pave the way for a follow- through Euro-American partner ship. The principle that Concorde will cost more per seat to buy and per seat-mile to operate than the present generation of wide-body transports is not disputed by protagonists of the SST. Cost is only one side of the economic equation, however. The key to Concorde's success will be its abil ity to attract high-fare passengers. Although in very round figures Concorde will cost about twice as much to operate per seat-mile as a wide-body subsonic, first-class fares are typically twice the overall average. There will be no discount "advance-booking" and other fares on Concorde to dilute revenue. One WJI it pay? of the problems for Air France and British Airways will be the desire of competing airlines to force a high supersonic surcharge to pro tect their obsolete fleets. Concorde's high block speed means that in terms of seat-miles per hour its productivity ap proaches that or the wide-body tri-jets. It will have a greater im pact on airline planning than its nominal capacity of 108 seats suggests. In many ways, Concorde will be like any other airliner but more than most it will rely on efficient operation and professional stan dards of engineering and account ing. It might be fair, for example, to weight SST passenger costs to take account of the high standard of service, but unrealistic to allo cate all indirect costs on a per flight basis when trip time is halved. Will it be fair to assign ticketing and reservations costs according to the price of the ticket when the real cost of booking a low-fare ABC passenger may be higher? UTILISATION Bearing in mind that some effi cient airlines achieve annual 747 utilisations of 4,200hr, an operator with four or five Concordes should be able to return utilisations of about 3,600hr. This may involve some fairly sophisticated schedul ing and maintenance, but the high cost of the aircraft will probably provide the necessary incentive. Just like all other airliners, the purchase price of Concorde has risen since the initial customers— Flight International Supplement, w/e 17 January 1976 Air France, British Airways, CAAC and Iran Air—signed preliminary purchase agreements. Each Con corde will probably now cost a new customer some $60 million. With spares, this represents a total in vestment of close to $75 million. Concorde is essentially an air craft for business passengers and there is no doubt that London-New York is the premiere business route—hence the battle for landing rights at Kennedy. The acid test of Concorde's profitability is there fore the 3,540-mile London-New York sector which will require an average block time of 3hr 30min. Most airlines have a deprecia tion policy which writes down the cost of a new aircraft to a low residual value over a period of years. For a subsonic type a period of 12 to 14 years is not unusual; for Concorde 12 years to ten per cent residual would seem appropri ate. This would give an hourly cost of $1,605. Insurance rates vary from one per cent to more than three per cent of first cost; two per cent would seem likely for Concorde— —contributing $344 per hour. Flight-testing and route-proving by the prototype, pre-production and production aircraft have yielded maintenance and overhaul cost data to back up more theoretical studies. Direct and indirect mainte nance costs calculated at a labour rate of $7-5 per man-hour result in maintenance charges of $420 per hour plus $911 per flight cycle. Total maintenance cost on London-New York would average $1,208 per hour. Current levels of salaries, ex penses and training suggest that each member of the flight crew would cost $140 per hour; Con corde will probably have a three- man crew costing $420 per flying
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
