United Airlines Wants to Bring Back Supersonic Air Travel

[NNadir]

40. I flew on the Concorde three times.

The first time was my first trip to France.

I left JFK at 1 pm, roughly, as I recall, and arrived in Paris - if I recall correctly, CDG air por about 3 or 4 hours later. The problem with that was that in Paris, it was late evening.

I had to struggle with speaking (and worse, understanding) French, which I had not done for many years; my reading knowledge was not of much use. All the restaurants were closing, and I was wide awake. By the time I got out of customs, found a cab, got to my hotel, it was very late Paris time.

I'm already an insomniac.

It sucked.

I flew to Paris one other time on the Concorde, mostly for logistic reasons: At the time, in order to fill the seats, Air France had a deal that they would upgrade Americans (not French) to Concorde if you purchased a Business class ticket.

The plane was small, rather cramped, something like a bus.

Flying from Paris to NY was better. One actually arrived an hour before one left. I had a business breakfast in the morning, and a business meeting in the late afternoon.

I really don't think supersonic flight is a great thing. Going to Paris, it's much better to buy a business class ticket, have dinner, sleep on the plane with an Ambien (or equivalent, if needed) arrive in the morning, and go right to meetings so that at the end of the day, you're totally time adjusted.

These machines are also environmental disasters, although I didn't really think (or know) all that much about them in the early 1990's when I was flying to France a lot.

The only really cool thing about the plane was the altitude; it flew very high, and one could actually see the curvature of the Earth quite well.

The service was good, but not as good as in business or in first class.