In the Concorde story you always hear about British Airways and Air France who were the two main operators of the aircraft. Singapore Airlines also operated Concorde.
It is a small part of the aircraft’s history but an interesting one. I think it looks amazing in Singapore Airlines livery as well, I just wish there were more pictures of it.
Singapore Airlines Concorde
Concorde services at British Airways were originally supposed to go to Australia, routing London-Bahrain-Singapore-Sydney. This is probably why the first scheduled service went to Bahrain as it is on the way.
The continuation to Singapore started on 9 December 1977 as a cooperative service between Singapore Airlines and British Airways. Flight crew were provided by British Airways while cabin crew were Singapore Airlines one way and British Airways the other way.
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- A classy tail! Image by Steve Fitzgerald via Airways Magazine.
For the service, Concorde G-BOAD was painted in Singapore Airlines colours on one side. As a result, this aircraft usually operated the Singapore route.
Four days after the service started, it was withdrawn as the Malaysian Government complained about the sonic boom over the Straits of Malacca. How unfortunate!
Political Playing
Before services commenced, it was the Indian Government causing a headache as they refused permission for Concorde to fly over their territory. The airlines bargained but in the end had to route around the country adding 200 miles to the distance.
The Indian Government then tried to demand more access to London Heathrow for Air India in exchange for Concorde overflight rights. Governments have long used air service agreements in their game of political Chess.
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- Singapore Airlines Concorde via ConcordeSST.com
When it comes to Malaysia, Singapore Airlines was a great competitor of Malaysian Airlines so that is one aspect. The other is that Malaysia was trying to use the carrot of Concorde access to gain fifth freedom rights out of Heathrow.
Eventually the airlines decided to avoid Malaysia as well, which added more complexity to the route. Services restarted on 24 January 1979 but were not to last.
The End To Singapore Airlines’ Concorde Venture
Concorde finished serving Singapore on 1 November 1980 with flights being withdrawn due to low load factors. Apparently it lost £2 million each year.
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- Concorde at rest. Image by Steve Fitzgerald via Airways Magazine.
Having to fly subsonic over various portions of the route as well as diverting around India and avoiding Malaysia did not help. Regular scheduled services on the rest of the route through to Australia never started as a result.
Overall Thoughts
It is interesting to see that British Airways were attempting some variety in their Concorde services. The aircraft really was not suitable for the long trip from London to Singapore as it was small and noisy and not particularly comfortable.
Concorde’s niche was crossing the Atlantic, specifically to New York and for a time Washington DC and Miami. The short flights and high prices charged once the service was made into a luxury product made it profitable at British Airways.
Have any of you flown on or worked on Concorde? I’d love to hear about it! Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Kjell Nilsson via Airliners.net
I flew Concorde twice in 1991 – Air France JFK-CDG, and British LHR-JFK. Amazing flights, time of my life!
That’s awesome – both the fact you got to try Concorde and that you got to try both airlines. An excellent experience to have! I’m not jealous at all 😉
Came across this blog whilst researching Concorde flights with Singapore Airlines. After working in Singapore for over 7 years I was able to book a flight on BOAD for Thursday 11th of October 1979. The Captain was J. D. Cook, FO RJS Burchell and Flt. Eng IR Fellowes-Freeman. The FO and Eng signatures are a bit blurred on the certificate so apologies if I have made a mistake. This was a dream come true as I had been in aviation all my life.
Certainly one of the rarest, to have flown on the services from Singapore as they were so relatively short lived. I bet it was a dream come true – I think for a lot of people travelling on Concorde will be one of the highlights of their life. I only regret I never did it myself! 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Hi, Good Evening! I have been searching of info but could not find. I am curious. How much was approx the ticket cost back then to fly in concorde from SIA to Heathrow Airport? Thank you. From: Jeffery 🙂
That’s something I’d like to know myself. I can’t remember if it is in a Concorde book I have, called “The Concorde Story” by Christopher Orlebar. You may check there if you can find the book in a library. I don’t know offhand though – good luck! 🙂
Thank you for the insightful and informative post. It’s articles like this that set you apart from some of these other guys who only seem to be interested in shamelessly pushing credit card referral links. Thanks again
Thanks very much for taking the time to comment! Really happy to hear you enjoyed the post. Now I’ll have to keep up the quality as much as I can – no pressure, right? haha
I flew Concorde AF JFK to CDG on Dec 15 1979 with my parents… i was 8. Was shown the flight deck by the pilot. Was really impressed. Then, i was luck enough to fly it again in 2001 from CDG to JFK. Was even more impressed as i could appreciate the service provided by the cabin crew… Top shelf everything. Went by too fast.
Beautiful that you got to try it both as a youngster and as an adult. That sounds like two very excellent experiences right there. I wish I had the opportunity to do that myself. Thanks for the comment!
I flew the Concord in the late 90’s from JFK to Lhr. I always said it was like flying Southwest. You had to duck when entering the cabin. Not spacious at all. Crew was very good though.
Hahaha! Yes, having been on them in museums, you need to be short to get through the door and inside it is very very small indeed. Great to hear you had an excellent crew – the crews were very proud of Concorde indeed. Thanks for the comment!
I have just found an amazing picture of Concorde in Singapore Airlines livery taking off at Heathrow. My father was Head of Security for BAA (previously Chief Super at Heathrow Police Station) and it’s a professional photo so I guess it was a gift to him. The plane looks fantastic as always.
Awesome! I think it looks fantastic in the Singapore Airlines livery 🙂 That is great that your father was working for BAA! Excellent!
Yes, I did.
Excellent!
if you wanna see a really fun Concorde picture, there’s that BRIGHT orange Braniff one, which was a partnership to extend IAD service to DFW, but obviously at sub-sonic speeds.
and then there’s the Concorde-wannabe Tu-144, which made the totally wrong choice of using TurboFANS instead of TurboJETS.
It really is a shame none of them were painted up in Braniff colours for that service. That would have been a sight for sore eyes! That would have been a fantastic short flight to get on, just to experience the aircraft.
Yes, a shame about the TU-144 really. Now having that on a list of aircraft you have flown on would be some achievement!