Cockpit Chronicles: Hitching a ride to Kentucky in Concorde

Filed under: The Cockpit ChroniclesOccasionally, when pilots are together, the subject eventually will come around to airplanes. Specifically, just what airplane we'd most like to fly.

While I have a rather long list that includes the Ford Tri-Motor and the Spitfire, solidly at the top of the heap lies Concorde. An airplane so special, you're not even allowed to put 'the' in front of its name.

Since there was no possibility of ever flying this airplane at my airline, I knew I had to do the closest thing. Even though my wife and I were very recently hired at our respective airlines, we both agreed that we'd have to pay for a non-revenue (slang for employee reduced-rate) flight in Concorde before it was retired. This was in the mid '90s and the one-way tickets were still a relatively steep $600 per employee.

At the time, my wife was a flight attendant for United, based in Newark. She was working in the aft galley when a gentleman came back for something. He happened to mention that he worked for British Airways at JFK as the director of Concorde charters.

My wife told him of our plans to purchase a pass on the airplane for a flight to London in the future, just for the experience.

"Don't do that." He said. "We have a charter flight from New York to Cincinnati in two weeks. Come along on then. No charge."

He even extended the offer to the other flight attendants riding that day, but they all passed on the opportunity.

Two weeks later, Linda and I arrived at the Concorde lounge early enough to watch the inbound supersonic jet taxi to the gate. There was a tremendous amount of activity by the staff, with everyone even more frantic than what would be typical for agents eager to 'turn-around' an airplane quickly.

We soon discovered what was happening.Continue reading Cockpit Chronicles: Hitching a ride to Kentucky in ConcordeCockpit Chronicles: Hitching a ride to Kentucky in Concorde originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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