A celebration of aviation innovation: Concorde

On January 21, 2026, Royal Mail issued a Concorde series to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first commercial flight. This time, a series consisting of 8 stamps and a S/S with 4 stamps. A number of designs had previously appeared in the 1969 series. Essentially a reprint with new values. Beautiful designs for aviation collectors!

Concord (2026)

The Concorde was a supersonic passenger aircraft. Only twenty aircraft were built, including four prototypes. The aircraft first flew in 1969 and made its last flight on November 26, 2003. The name means harmony.

The Concorde was a prestige project of the British and French governments. Plans for the aircraft were drawn up as early as 1955. Its development was accompanied by all kinds of cooperation problems between the British and the French, which often had to be resolved at a high political level. Another cause of the problems was that a production line was maintained in both countries. However, this would lead a few years later to the formation of the international consortium Airbus.

The Concorde could fly up to an altitude of 18 kilometers and reach a speed of Mach 2,04, more than twice the speed of sound. As a result, the aircraft flew from London to New York in less than three hours. On February 7, 1996, the Concorde set a speed record of 1920 km/h on the New York–London route. The aircraft had a take-off speed of approximately 400 km/h and a landing speed of around 290 km/h.

Although the Concorde made it possible for a traveler to fly to New York in a single day, conduct business there, and return the same day, many business travelers still found the fare too high; a return ticket from London to New York cost €11.000. When fuel prices rose even further, daily transatlantic flights were discontinued in October 2003. That marked the end of the Concorde, which had been defeated by slower but much cheaper widebody aircraft, such as the Boeing 747.

First Flight of Concorde (1969)

British Airways employed two hundred people to keep the Concordes in the air. Furthermore, the disaster in 2000 led to lower passenger numbers and higher maintenance costs, which contributed to the accelerated termination of the Concorde program in 2003. On May 31, 2003, Air France operated the last Concorde flight. On October 24, 2003, it was British Airways' turn to bid farewell to the Concorde. The final commercial flight was operated between London and New York. With the return flight to London, which was exclusively for invited guests, the supersonic era in civil aviation, which lasted a total of 28 years, came to an end (for the time being).