Air France is boosting its operational BAC/Aerospatiale Concorde fleet to six, with the planned return to service in early July of an aircraft which has been in storage at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport for the past five years.
Despite plans for an expanded fleet, however, the French flag carrier says that it has turned down requests from alliance partners Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines to buy blocked space on Concorde flights between Paris and New York as part of a codesharing agreement.
Air France Concorde commercial director Frank Debouck says that the airline's single daily service to New York means that not enough seats are available for a codeshare, but he adds that requests could be reconsidered as the carrier is looking at adding a second daily service. "Continental and Delta requested some seats for a codeshare, but we decided to say no, because we need the seats for ourselves," says Debouck.
He adds that the decision was made to return Concorde F-BVFB to service because the other five aircraft are scheduled to undergo heavy-maintenance checks sequentially from July, as they each approach 12,000 flight hours. Each aircraft will be out of service for eight to nine months. "We need five aircraft in service for regular flights to New York and for charter flights," he says.
The cost of making the aircraft airworthy is put at Fr30 million ($5.2 million), with many spare parts having to be specially manufactured by Aerospatiale and British Aerospace. Debouck adds that "five or six" test flights will be carried out in June, to gain formal approval from France's DGAC airworthiness authority to return the aircraft to service.
Air France originally took delivery of seven Concordes, but one has been broken up for spares.
Source: Flight International
