In the two and a half years that Concorde has been in service with British Airways and Air France, the nine aircraft in service have carried 250 000 passengers, travelled 16 million miles and accumulated 15 310 flying hours. These numbers, though still small by airliner standards, are sufficient for effective comparison of service experience with predictions made and objectives set during the design process. This provides the central theme of our paper.

The Concorde project, always controversial, has been assessed many many times on technical, economic and environmental grounds. In fact it has inspired a literature of its own, comprising papers of all kinds–favourable and unfavourable, learned and hysterical. It has been the subject of predictions by the hundreds, ranging from the optimistic to the absolutely dire. This paper, written with the benefit of hindsight, is thereby distinguished from the bulk of this literature.