> For the kind of customer that used Concorde, the idea of being pampered in Business or First was often much more attractive than saving a couple of hours

People vastly underestimate the effect lay-flat travel had on demand for the Concorde.

Consider the time differences between London and New York. An overnight lay-flat loses a traveller little to no daytime. A Concorde, while faster, is less comfortable and leaves and/or arrives at an awkward time for a business traveller.

The major(and I will take the risk and say - only) benefit of the concorde was the amazing ability it gave some people of making a New York<->London return trip in one day. For some businessmen that was absolutely invaluable - they could jump on a plane in the morning, have their meeting in New York, and be back in London late in the evening. No other plane offers that.

Note that this very much only worked one way: Europe to the US, not vice-versa, because of the curvature of the Earth (and even then, better for London versus Paris because of geography). Since the plane needs to be full on all of it's flights to pay it's costs, this was quite the problem and very much a limit on routes that could be profitable.

To be pedantic it's because of the direction of rotation of the earth, rather than its curvature.

Lay-flat came to the game relatively late so I'm not sure about direct impact on the Concorde. But I would agree that looking forward any supersonic commercial aircraft would have to compete with seating in standard widebodies that is very comfortable and food that is pretty decent. A transatlantic flight in first class or even business class takes some time but it's really not uncomfortable. Relatively few people are really in a situation where the few hours in a comfortable plane are worth $$$$.

Yes, longer distance flights are, well, long but then you have a whole other set of engineering challenges to do those routes nonstop supersonic.

> Lay-flat came to the game relatively late so I'm not sure about direct impact on the Concorde

Lay flat preceded the Concorde. More than that, it was caused by it. "In 1977, El Al announced plans to reconfigure its aircraft with a small first class cabin and larger business class cabin on the assumption that most transatlantic first-class passengers would shift their business to the Concorde" [1].

EDIT: This is all wrong.

> Relatively few people are really in a situation where the few hours in a comfortable plane are worth $$$$

Business class is where airlines make the bulk of their profits.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_class#History

Business class was not originally lay-flat. What the NYTimes reference used by that Wikipedia article says is that El Al assumed the Concorde would take away most of the real first class flyers and all that they needed was basically something like domestic business class today.

Business class mostly started up as an offering for, well, business travelers who could give the appearance of being frugal relative to first class while still traveling comfortably. What's happened over time is a lot of dedicated first class seating has gone away and business class has been incrementally upgraded to something that's mostly much better than old-fashioned first class ever was.

> Relatively few people are really in a situation where the few hours in a comfortable plane are worth $$$$

Business class is where airlines make the bulk of their profits.

I wasn't clear. Yes. Lots of people will pay extra for business. I was saying I'm not sure how many of those will then spend 2x or more for a bit more speed when they're already comfortable.

ADDED: This article suggests lay-flat came in during the 1990s which sounds about right to me: https://thepointsguy.com/2017/05/evolution-of-business-class... I definitely remember flying business class transatlantic in the early 90s and it wasn't lay-flat.

> Business class was not originally lay-flat

You're 100% correct--my bad.

My dad used to fly back and forth to Europe in first/business a lot. He told me that he once got upgraded to the Concorde and, while it was a neat experience to do once, he actually preferred the experience on what I assume would have been a 747. He was doing longer trips so the fly to London to seal a deal and head back home the next day wasn't his use case.

(And as I recall it got him in at rush hour rather than just having a nice dinner on the plane.)

Kafkaesque nightmare?! I think you must have an easy life if you describe Heathrow in those terms.