Virgin wants Concorde, for £1 10/04/2003 18:51 – (SA)

London – Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson said on Thursday his airline was interested in buying British Airways’ doomed Concorde fleet, but would offer just £1 (€1.5, $1.6).

Branson, the king of publicity stunts, said in a statement he would be asking BA for the full operation figures for its fleet of seven Concorde.

“Since the British Airways’ announcement this morning we have been flooded with calls from the public, including BA staff, asking us to see if we can keep Concorde flying,” said Branson.

“When the Conservative government gave British Airways Concorde for £1 they said that if another British company ever wanted to operate it they could.

“If having examined the figures Virgin Atlantic, with its lower cost base, believes it can make a success of it we will be asking British Airways to give us the planes for the same price that they were given them for (£1) together with the slots and other facilities that they use.

“This might come to nothing but I believe that every effort should be made to keep Concorde flying as it is such an important symbol of British innovation,” he added.

Air France and British Airways said on Thursday Concorde would stop flying by the end of October at the latest after more than quarter of a century as a transatlantic shuttle for the rich and privileged.

The cost of developing the supersonic passenger jet were borne by the British and French governments and only BA and Air France – at the time both state-run – opted to buy the hugely expensive aircraft.

BA indicated that it wanted to see its Concordes put on display to the public rather than going to rival carriers.

British Airways, Air France End Concorde Thu Apr 10, 9:48 AM ET Add Business – Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Daniel Morrissey and Noah Barkin

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) – The Concorde began its final descent on Thursday as British Airways and Air France said they would stop flying the world’s first and only supersonic jetliner because flagging passenger demand could not cover its rising costs.

The decision to retire the slender, needle-nosed jet to museums after 27 years of service brings down a potent symbol of Franco-British engineering prowess and the jet-set lifestyles of the rich and famous who flew on Concorde.

“Concorde changed the way people traveled,” British Airways Chief Executive Rod Eddington told reporters on Thursday. “With its going, we must lose some of the romance from aviation.”

But the costs associated with the fuel-guzzling jet had become too onerous for the only two airlines that fly the 100-seat plane. Both carriers said falling revenues and rising maintenance costs was behind their decision.

Air France, Europe’s second-largest airline, said it was halting Concorde flights from May 31, while British Airways, Europe’s biggest airline, said it would stop commercial flights in the days leading up to the end of October.

The plane’s demise comes nearly three years after the crash of one an Air France Concorde shortly after take-off from Roissy Charles De Gaulle airport near Paris in July 2000.

The crash, which killed 113 people, forced both airlines to ground the planes for over a year.

When they resumed transatlantic service in November 2001, the global economy was slowing and the civil aerospace market heading into its worst ever downturn following the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Although the Concorde has always been linked in the public eye to champagne-quaffing, lobster-dining celebrities with money to spare, the reality is much different.

Eddington said more than two-thirds of Concorde’s passengers were business travelers. Falling stock markets, a drought in mergers and acquisitions and weak economies have forced City of London and Wall Street banks to cut tens of thousands of jobs and even high-flying CEOs to rein in their outlays.

“Recently, we were filling only about 20 percent of the seats,” Air France Chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta told a news conference.

HIGH COSTS, LOW REVENUES

British Airways said retiring its Concordes would result in $130.5 million of write-off costs for the year that ended March 31, 2003, while Air France estimated the cost of retirement at between 50 million and 60 million euros ($64.63 million).

Spinetta said this one-time writedown would be partly offset because the plane would no longer be a financial drain on the company.

He said Concorde had dragged down profits by about 50 million euros in Air France’s most recent fiscal year, which ended on March 31. Operating costs for the plane per seat-kilometere, had surged 58 percent since the July 2000 crash, Air France executives said.

That forced carriers to charge high ticket prices for London-New York and Paris-New York flights, which took under three-and-a-half hours on the supersonic speedster.

The $6,980 average price tag for a Concorde flight from London to New York, which has passengers paying $39 a minute for a three-hour flight, looks a lot steeper these days than it did in recent years of economic opulence.

“The problem at the moment is because of the economic downturn there are far fewer people that are prepared to pay that price,” BNP Paribas analyst Nick van den Brul said.

In addition, spare parts were hard to come by and the planes were in need of constant maintenance.

Pieces of the rudders used to steer the jets, which cross the ocean at up to 1,350 miles per hour, have fallen off in flight at least six times during the past 13 years.

Air France said manufacturers had made it clear that new costly parts programs would have to be launched soon to ensure continued service.

Concorde’s four Olympus 593 engines, designed by Britain’s Rolls-Royce and Snecma of France, are the most powerful pure jet engines on any commercial plane, but consume vast amounts of fuel.

NEXT GENERATION

Eddington said there would be a “significant gap” before the next generation of supersonic aircraft was built, and it would have to overcome the problem of the sonic boom. Regulators do not allow Concorde to fly at supersonic speed over land, limiting its route potential.

Aircraft maker Boeing Co proposed building a jet dubbed the “Sonic Cruiser” that would fly just under the speed of sound at Mach 0.98. But the idea met with little interest from airlines, which instead wanted a more efficient aircraft to save on operating costs.

Instead, Boeing is now developing a mid-sized wide-body jet known as the 7E7, which it says would cut fuel burn by up to 20 percent compared to similar sized jets in the air today.

“There does not seem to be a viable market, at least in the current environment, for the premium service that a supersonic airplane would offer,” said Todd Blecher, a spokesman for Boeing’s Seattle-based commercial jet unit.

Both Air France and British Airways said they would turn over their combined fleet of 12 Concordes to interested museums.

($1=.6435 Pound)

($1=.9283 Euro)

-Ian. —– http://www.observer.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,726488,00.html

Nuclear neighbours teeter on brink of Armageddon

India and Pakistan could be just hours away from a fight feared by the entire planet

Jason Burke and Peter Beaumont Sunday June 2, 2002 The Observer

Tonight, in the forests of Kashmir, figures will be moving in the darkness. They are fighters using terrorism to overthrow Indian rule in the disputed state.

New Delhi says these militants take their orders directly from Islamabad. The Pakistanis say they are independent. Neither claim, according to inquiries by The Observer, is accurate. And it is through the gap between these stories that 1.25 billion people could fall into a nuclear nightmare.

This weekend tens of thousands of soldiers, hundreds of tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces are being readied for war. The Pakistanis have withdrawn troops from their western frontier, where they were deployed against al-Qaeda, and sent them to face the Indians.

Artillery duels rage along the length of the line of control that splits Kashmir, the only state with a Muslim majority in predomi nantly Hindu India. American officials say the situation is as dangerous as the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The world watches in fear.

Indian military planners know that if war comes, a crushing victory is essential. ‘War is one game that you cannot lose or draw, especially if you are the bigger country,’ retired General Ved Prakash Malik, the former Indian army chief of staff, said. The Indian options, however, are limited.

Air strikes against militant training bases or headquarters in Pakistan have been ruled out. In previous conflicts the Pakistanis have picked off India’s warplanes and, as one Indian defence analyst, said, ‘such strikes would only have symbolic value… these camps are ramshackle structures … and can be rebuilt easily.’

Commando raids to destroy the militants’ Pakistan-based infrastructure are out too. There is no guarantee of success, and casualties could be prohibitively high.

Instead India is considering two options. The first is a ‘salami slice offensive’. After a 48-hour bombardment Indian jets would try to establish air superiority before troops attacked along a 100 miles of frontier between the city of Muzaffarabad and Mirpur. The aim: to secure high ground and mountain passes that allow militants to cross into India. The territory could be used as bargaining chips in any negotiations.

Both sides have been preparing for such an operation since the last full-blown war between India and Pakistan 30 years ago. Instead, says retired Air Marshal Kapil Kak, an Indian defence analyst, something ‘unexpected, innovative, inconceivable which pays fast dividends’ is more likely. Speed is of the essence. Indian planners reckon they have only 72 hours before a Pakistani leader, his defences collapsing, reaches for the nuclear button.

So the second option is far more ambitious and dangerous: to teach Pakistan a short, sharp lesson and then move swiftly to negotiations. After an artillery bombardment and air strikes, Indian paratroops would seize points on a long salient stretching deep into Pakistan from the border near to the northern Indian town of Kargil. Ground troops would push down valleys to link the seized positions up to 50 miles into Pakistan. Talks could then start from a position of strength.

The world now wants to know: will war happen? And if it does, how fast could it go nuclear?

In the past seven days the sense of impending catastrophe has deepened exponentially in London and Washington, driven by Pentagon alarm over ‘unusual Indian troop movements’ which US Defence Intelligence Agency analysts believe signal that Indian forces are all now in position for an imminent assault.

Sources in London said concern within Whitehall was ‘white hot’. In recent days Cabinet ministers have met in the ‘Cobra’ war room beneath Whitehall – reserved for wars and national emergencies – as a chilling realisation dawned that despite a threatened nuclear ‘cataclysm’, Indian may still risk waging war against Pakistan.

‘Dates for a possible Indian attack have been mentioned,’ said one Foreign Office source. ‘The time of greatest risk has been assessed as the beginning of the second week of June. You cannot believe the level of concern.’

Senior officials of MI6, the Defence Ministry, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development and MI6 ‘are working 18-hour days’, said one civil service source. ‘They are working flat out right through the jubilee weekend.’

The MoD and the Foreign Office officials are drawing up a contingency plan for an ‘ordered’ emergency evacuation of British citizens, using British Airways jets.

‘We are talking about the risk of war breaking out not within weeks but days,’ said one senior diplomatic source. ‘Anything could trigger it now. When you have a million and a half men under arms, you have a tinder box.’

‘It’s like the First World War, with both sides mobilising on automatic,’ said retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, who frequently dealt with Pakistan when he headed the US Central Command in the late Nineties. ‘When they see an action on one side, there is a pre-programmed counter-reaction.’

Most chilling of all is the verdict of intelligence analysis from Washington and other European capitals that any Indian attack over the line separating Indian and Pakistani forces in Kashmir could rapidly escalate into a nuclear exchange.

‘We do not think you could talk of a limited conventional war here,’ said a senior Foreign Office source last week. ‘India’s two-to-one military superiority in ground and air forces would rapidly lead to Pakistan being very tempted to use nuclear weapons.’

Western intelligence analysis suggests India has factored this into its calculations. ‘The Indians believe they can absorb whatever pain is inflicted on them by Pakistan in any coming war and win, including a Pakistani first use of nuclear weapons,’ said one source. ‘They know millions will die but they believe India will still be there afterwards.’

The Indian agenda, say diplomatic sources, is driven by its generals’ belief that this may be their last chance finally to secure Kashmir. ‘Indian intelligence believes that although Pakistan has viable nuclear devices it does not have a properly weaponised ballistic system to deliver them. The judgment is that Pakistan is at least 12 months away from having missiles which can reliably carry nuclear weapons.

‘At best, India believes, Pakistan can field a fairly crude air-delivered device. The judgment is that if it is to do anything about Kashmir, it has to do it now.’

Yet what alarms seasoned observers of South Asia most is a belief that both sides are now psychologically committed to conflict. ‘There is an incredible sense of imminence,’ said one Foreign Office source last week. ‘They have both entered a war mindset. Neither can see any sense. This makes the risk so cataclysmic.’

The experts are alarmed too about how either side would respond to a real nuclear threat. There is no hotline warning system between them and, worse, neither has clear rules for using the weapons. They are equally vague about how a conventional war might turn into a nuclear one.

If one side suspects a first use of nuclear weapons, there is little time for manoeuvre or margin for error. Unlike the United States and the Soviet Union, which had as much as 30 minutes to react between a suspected missile launch and impact in the Cold War, India and Pakistan are so close geographically that they would have less than eight minutes.

Thoughts are now turning to the unthinkable: how the world would deal with the aftermath of a nuclear catastrophe.

The US Defence Intelligence Agency calculates that the first hour of a full-scale nuclear exchange could kill as many as 12 million people and leave up to seven million injured. Millions more would die in other fighting or from starvation and disease.

In Britain government experts calculate that all Pakistan’s water and food would be contaminated by even a limited exchange, with large areas of India rendered practically uninhabitable.

‘We don’t even know where to start in thinking about how to deal with a humanitarian crisis on this scale,’ said one source. ‘There are simply no models for it. We don’t even know how we would get aid in in the immediate aftermath. No one has any experience of a humanitarian operation on this scale on a nuclear battlefield, and India and Pakistan have no mechanisms for coping with this.’

And it is not simply the fate of the combatant nations that frightens the planners. ‘In a worst-case scenario,’ said a senior Foreign Office source, ‘we would be looking at contamination affecting Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh even China.’

The fear is global but the problem – and any solution – is local. The critical factor is the militants. A major attack by them could start a war. A genuine end to their activity could be enough for peace. But, in all the brinkmanship and sabre-rattling, it is very difficult to tell what is really happening.

Sources close to Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the main militant group, told The Observer last week they had been ordered by Musharraf to cease all cross-border activity immediately at least three days before the Pakistani President made a bellicose speech last Sunday that enraged the Indians .

‘Concessions on the ground by Pakistan tend to be matched by strong rhetoric on the Kashmir issue,’ said Alexander Evans, a Kashmir analyst at Centre for Defensive Studies, London.

‘There is a nationalist cage in both countries within which Kashmir policy can rattle around but no political leader on either side would risk the wrath of public opinion by unlocking the door.’

There are other pressures on Musharraf. He needs support within the army, and many senior generals are hawkish. Some see helping the Muslim Kashmiris as a religious duty. Musharraf even faces assassination.

And, as India points out, his own sympathies are unclear. He, after all, orchestrated the 1999 ‘Kargil’ operation in which 1,000 Pakistani troops occupied a tactical ridge inside Indian Kashmir. Hundreds died in the fighting.

And there are militant groups that even Musharraf cannot control. The aggressive Jaish-e-Mohammed (the Army of Mohammed) is unlikely to obey his orders to cease fire. Other, ‘home-grown’ Kashmiri militants have stockpiles of weapons and funds independent of Pakistani support.

One man with a Kalashnikov and some dynamite could set off a blast that will make the entire world tremble.

India Nuclear warheads: 100 to 150, including up to 20 nuclear bombs that could be dropped from Jaguar or Mirage 2000 aircraft. The rest could be fitted to Agni or Prithvi missiles.

Pakistan Nuclear warheads: 25 to 50, including up to 20 bombs deliverable by F-16 fighter jets. Remainder could be fitted to Shaheen, Ghauri or Hatf missiles.

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