On this day, October 24, 2003, Concorde made its last commercial flight.

[NNadir]

1. I flew on that thing three times with free AF upgrades.

Air France offered Americans, not the French, a free upgrade one way for a business class purchase for round trips to Paris.

It was a small interior, with a digital device posted for speed in Mach units. What was upsetting was that you left JFK at around 1 pm, and three hours later arrived in France around the time the city was shutting down from the time difference, wide awake, unable to sleep, something tough for me as I already am an insomniac.

I flew to Europe twice, and back to the US once on the plane. Coming back one had the sensation of arriving before you left. I had a breakfast meeting in Paris and a US meeting in the afternoon.

The cool thing was the altitude at which it flew. One could see the curvature of the Earth quite clearly and had the impression of almost being in outer space.

It wasn't worth the money if you paid full price though.

I was less aware of the environmental implications than I am today, but I was not, in any case, in a position, in the politics of my company at the time, to decline it.