New York, May 31: An Air France Concorde took off on its last supersonic commercial flight today, leaving New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport for Paris and a slice of aviation history. The French Concorde, which has run up 27 years under the Air France banner, left New York a little behind its scheduled departure time of 8:00 am (1730 IST). The flight to Paris's Charles De Gaulle Airport was scheduled to take three hours and 45 minutes.
At six in the morning, the first passengers on flight F001 checked their baggage in the nearly deserted terminal hall. Network news vans were parked outside, waiting to bear witness to the end of an era of trans- Atlantic luxury travel.
"Today is our last day with Concorde," said Cypriam Ugugh, a security guard finishing his night shift.
"It's a beautiful aircraft," he added. "The plane is not wonderful looking at, but when it is landing and taking off, it becomes a different thing."
"My wife told me this morning, 'the Concorde is stopping, your mistress is leaving you’," joked Jacques Malot, Air France's representative at Kennedy Airport.
Shortly after six, the flight crew entered the terminal, their progress watched with emotion by other Air France personnel and airport security agents.
Later, in the white-and-wood first-class waiting room, passengers sampled offerings from a buffet including croissants and fresh fruit.
Suspended above their heads, bathed in the morning light streaming in through large windows, was an enlargement of a photo taken from the Concorde's cockpit during a solar eclipse in August 1999. Bureau Report