Retro Video Shows What Flying in a Concorde Was Like in 2003

From 1976 to 2003, the Anglo-French airline company Concorde operated a fleet of 14 supersonic jets capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean in just 3.5 hours. In this video of a flight from New York to London, filmed in 2003, you can see what the experience was like.

The footage shows that flying in a Concorde was, in some ways, a luxury experience—which makes sense, given that roundtrip tickets could cost $10,000 in the 1990s not adjusting for inflation. In addition to getting to their destination much more quickly, passengers on this flight were served champagne and caviar with their normal meal.

Still, Concorde planes were built for speed and efficiency first and foremost. The seats were standard and not particularly comfortable, and the windows were small. On this particular flight, the captain made sure to warn passengers that the experience would be a little different than what they were used to. He told them not to be alarmed by the sharpness of an upcoming turn or the kerosene-like smell from the thrusters used to get them to supersonic speeds.

“For a girl used to flying steerage, once through the doors of the sleek, tiny, cigar tube into the body of Concorde, I knew I had entered into the rarified air of gods and kings. But dang, things were small and cramped,” Concorde passenger Su Marshall told CNN Travel of the experience. ”Leather, polish and flutes of never-ending Champagne, but really squished. But hey, three and a half hours to Paris? I sucked it up.”

Eleven minutes after takeoff, the plane goes supersonic, eventually reaching its max speed of mach 2 (twice the speed of sound).

Ultimately, Concorde flights were ended for a variety of reasons, such as environmental concerns, noise complaints about the sonic boom, and low profits due to the steep price tag. But through videos like the one above, this astounding chapter in flight history lives on.

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