Air France Flight 4590 crash and possible remedies. Air France's Concorde operation had been a money-losing venture, but it is claimed that the aeroplane had been kept in service as a matter of national pride; British Airways claimed to make a profit on its Concorde operations. According to Jock Lowe, a Concorde pilot, up until the crash of Air France Flight 4590 at Paris, the British Airways Concorde operation made a net average profit of about £30m a year. Commercial service was resumed in November 2001 after a £17m safety improvement service, until the remaining aircraft were retired in 2003. The official investigation was
Concorde and French governments that led to Concorde's construction, the name "Concorde" is from the French word "concorde" (), which has an English equivalent, "concord". Both words mean "agreement", "harmony" or "union". The name was officially changed to "Concord" by Harold Macmillan in response to a perceived slight by Charles de Gaulle. At the French roll-out in Toulouse in late 1967, the British Government Minister for Technology, Tony Benn, announced that he would change the spelling back to "Concorde". This created a nationalist uproar that died down when Benn stated that the suffixed "e" represented "Excellence, England, Europe and Entente (Cordiale)".