Rusty Saber: Concorde's final flight still breathtaking

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.

"Business" is, after all, the middle name of Springfield Business Journal. Thus, it is reasonable to ask why I, a more or less illiterate clod on matters of business, write a weekly column in SBJ? Ask no more. This Rusty Saber poses a couple of business questions.

Recently the last flight from London of British Airway's Supersonic Transport (SST), the Concorde, landed at New York's Kennedy Airport. A simultaneous last flight from New York put down at London's Heathrow Airport.

The SST, a joint venture of the British and French governments, was capable of flying faster than the speed of sound (up to 1,350 mph), crossing the Atlantic in an incredible 3 1/2 hours. The first transatlantic flight was in January 1976. While the design technology is nearly 30 years old, nothing today comes close to matching it.

The TV images of the final landing at Kennedy Airport were breathtaking.

The British and French governments worked together on the design and manufacture of the airplane in hopes of selling hundreds of them. Only 14 were built. All went to British Airways and Air France. After years of losing money, British Airways finally pulled the plug on the SST venture in October. The French, being well, the French, gave up first, in May of this year.

While watching the TV report of the final landing of the SST in New York, the news commentator mentioned that the one-way transatlantic fare had been as much as $9,000; the fare for the final flight was $6,000. The business question: Is it conceivable that the ultra-high airfare had anything to do with the venture being a financial dud? Forget that the Concorde was the most gorgeous piece of flying machinery on the planet. If professional athletes, Saudi Arabian princes, movie and rock stars were the only ones able to pay the fare, perhaps a new pricing strategy was called for.

The British and French did have 27 years to experiment with ways to at least break even. Wouldn't lowering fares to attract more just plain old "well-heeled" passengers, as opposed to only the "filthy rich," have made a difference?

Alas, the SST era has passed. Most of the stunning airplanes will end up in museums. But wait a last minute proposal: Sell the Concordes to Bill Gates; everything he touches makes a profit.

Later I will ask if luxury mausoleums make good business sense. Don't answer yet. You'll say something like, "Since people in mausoleums are dead, why luxury accommodations?"

Several luxury mausoleums already exist, and more are in the planning or construction phase.

Mausoleums have been around since before the time of King Tut. The image most of us have of them is dreary, perhaps even scary. Forget that image. Baby boomers planning funerals for parents or pre-planning their own are the chief consumers of high rise, high-end luxury crypts, called by the funeral industry "community mausoleums." The Wall Street Journal calls the demand a "tomb boom." I call it "condo caskets." Amenities include (I'm not making up any of this) waterfalls, statuary gardens, auditoriums, cafes (for visitors, not tenants), gazebos, computer chips, and they contain photos, stories about the deceased and their recorded voices. Single "room" costs can vary from $2,500 to $15,000. A family of four can be accommodated for $27,000 to $40,000, depending on location. For large families wanting to stay together throughout eternity, this will cost a mere $316,000. Luxury mausoleums: a sound business venture or another consignment of New Age gobbledygook?