Life in the Slow Lane

Air France and British Airways Plc are giving up on the Concorde, citing falling passenger traffic and rising costs. Demand for seats on the Concorde, whose passengers have included golfer Tiger Woods and rock star Sting, never rebounded after an Air France crash in July 2000 which grounded the fleets for more than a year.

Flying the Concorde is your last chance to experience air travel at supersonic speeds; and your last chance to experience the kind of style air travel had in the 1950s and 1960s. If you can treat yourself to a ride on the Concorde before it stops flying, you definitely should.

Air France's last commercial Concorde flights will be Saturday, May 31, 2003. British Airways plans to stop flying the planes in October 2003.