Concorde with Concorde beating other British design icons such as the Mini, mini skirt, Jaguar E-Type, Tube map, the World Wide Web, K2 telephone box and the Supermarine Spitfire. The heads of France and the United Kingdom flew Concorde many times. Presidents Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand regularly used Concorde as French flagman aircraft in foreign visits. Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Ministers Edward Heath, Jim Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair took Concorde in some charter flights such as the Queen's trips to Barbados on her Silver Jubilee in 1977, in 1987 and in 2003,
Braniff International Airways place in Washington on each flight. Braniff became the registered operator of the planes while on U.S. domestic service, and the planes were physically re-numbered with temporary adhesive vinyl. Registration was then returned to Air France or British Airways on the trans-Atlantic leg. Over American soil, the Concorde was limited to Mach 0.95, though crews often flew just above Mach 1; the planes flew at Mach 2 over open water. Concorde service proved a loss leader for Braniff. Braniff charged only a 10 percent premium over standard first-class fare to fly the Concorde – and later removed the surcharge altogether