UK News 08-11-2001 20th Century Miracle Takes Flight At Last who: British Airways what: Flies first Concorde passenger flight since Air France crash where: HEATHROW AIRPORT when: Yesterday snippet: "A British Airways Concorde landed at JFK airport yesterday at the end of the first passenger flight since an Air France aircraft crashed near Paris 16 months ago," reports The Telegraph. "I was a Concorde virgin," says Valerie Grove, joining the press junket on behalf of The Times, "if the V-word does not strike a chill into the heart of British Airways." The "briefcase fraternity`s favourite mode of travel" has returned at a price of £6,819 plus £57.20 tax per head for the privilege of travelling at a maximum speed of 1,325mph - or, to put it another way, being one small part in the history of "a 20th-century miracle" that lets you arrive in New York before you take off in London. The Mirror`s editor Piers Morgan describes it as "one of those rare `I was there` moments for even the most hard-bitten cynical hack," commenting that the airline industry needed a boost because "to be brutally and doom-ladenly frank about it, one more disaster involving a plane and a lot of people may simply abandon flying altogether." But The Guardian`s design correspondent Jonathan Glancey warns that, despite a "lovely" interior refit, featuring "superb lightweight seats, in blue Connolly leather by Factory Design" there`s still "no room to swing a chimp". [... more]

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