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Price drives post-Concorde era
LONDON, England (CNN) -- As Concorde goes into retirement, airlines are fighting to offer that exclusive flying fix to the premium passenger. Now the market for executive business is driven by price rather than luxury and speed. And with the loss of their supersonic planes, British Airways (BA) and Air France are competing with the rest of the flag carriers in the tough business of subsonic travel. "We're confident that although we no longer have the supersonic product we can compete with anybody in the subsonic business," BA's Chief Executive Rod Eddington told CNN. Concorde had been challenged by jumbo jets that carry more business passengers. Lufthansa, for example, already flies to the U.S. from Germany with larger planes exclusively for the business and first class traveler. Yet price wars are set to persist, since airlines need to fill seats on their premium services at whatever cost to keep them running. "The corporate traveler doesn't pay top dollar because ... the airlines need them to sustain that premium product and as a consequence there will continue to be a price war," Chris Partridge, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, told CNN. BA could have raised extra money for new premium services by selling Concorde. But interest from Richard Branson's Virgin was turned down. "We said: 'Look, we'd be interested in making a bid. We'd like to see the figures,'" Branson, chairman of Virgin Group, told CNN. "British Airways publicly said they would not let us see the figures, that it was their planes and that nobody else would be allowed to buy them." BA has said it cannot sell any of its seven Concordes to Virgin as Airbus would only allow BA and Air France to fly them. Today's market is a far cry from the 1980s and 1990s when Concorde was a money-spinner for BA. Some analysts estimate that the company made up to £800 million ($1.3 billion) in operating profit throughout 27 years of service. This is a good return for a plane that cost BA just £1 in the mid-1970s, a plane developed by the British government at a cost to the taxpayer of £1.3 billion ($2.2 billion). CNN's Diana Muriel contributed to this report
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