I am pretty certain that few in the travel industry would have believed when this photo was made in April 1985 that the Queen Elisabeth 2 would actually stay in operation longer than Concorde would… Yet that is exactly what had happened.
Concorde’s future was sealed when F-BTSC crashed in Paris on 25 July 2000. Air France and British Airways tried to keep the magnificent bird alive after they re-launched service following modifications to the fuel tanks but the operation simply did not make economic sense any more. The last commercial BA flight on 24 October 2003 marked the end of 27 years of supersonic travel…
QE2 continued to plow the world’s oceans, retiring from Cunard service on 27 November 2008. She was destined to become a floating hotel, moored at Palm Jumeirah, Dubai.
The fate of Concorde, the fastest child of the species that killed the kin of QE2, was a bit like a child dying before the parent. A tragedy that hurts… as did Concorde’s disappearance from the skies.
Luckily, the Red Arrows survived and they continue to claim our place above the clouds.
