For more than two decades, Concorde made the dream of supersonic air travel a reality for a lucky few passengers between 1976 and 2003. Traveling on the iconic British-French airliner just once was the dream of many avgeeks, but one particular traveler managed to rack up a fair few more journeys. This is the story of Fred Finn’s 718 Concorde trips.
A supersonic world record
Readers of Guinness World Records can often find several interesting aviation-related feats in the famous book. For example, as Simple Flying explored in April 2021, the company awarded Michel Lotito the title of having the world’s strangest diet, after he consumed metal items including a Cessna 150. The book also features a record relating to Concorde.
Specifically, Fred Finn holds the title of being the person who has racked up the most flights onboard the famous supersonic airliner. All in all, Concorde Heritage reports that he traveled on the jet an incredible 718 times. These journeys helped him on his way to another world record for the most air miles flown by a passenger (more than 15 million).
Mr Finn traveled on the first and last Concorde flights between the UK and the US, and always sat in the same seat: 9A. He states that the reason for this is that 9A is where food and drink service began. On one day, he even flew on three separate Concorde flights!
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An expensive way of getting around
At his peak, Mr Finn used to make as many as two transatlantic return trips on Concorde a week as part of his role as an international license manager. His job frequently required him to be present in the US, where he would deal with technology transfers to developing nations. Of course, the cost of these supersonic journeys quickly added up.
Indeed, Concorde Heritage notes that a round trip on the legendary delta-winged jet would typically cost in the region of £5,000. Assuming that this figure refers to the end of Concorde’s service life, in 2003, this is the equivalent of around £8,300 ($11,150) today. All in all, his Mach 2 exploits are thought to have cost a total of around £2 million over the years.
2,000+ transatlantic trips overall
Interestingly, Mr Finn didn’t limit his transatlantic trips to just flights operated by Concorde. Indeed, most of his journeys between the UK and the US took place on the subsonic flights that you and I are more accustomed to. He estimated to have crossed the Atlantic over 2,000 times, so Concorde only accounted for around a third of these trips.
Mr Finn’s business travel also frequently took him to Africa, a continent he visited on 600 occasions. His favorite individual Concorde airframe was G-BOAF, which was the last example ever built. Today, it is on display in the Aerospace Bristol museum at Filton Airport, after proudly amassing a total of 18,257 flight hours in its career.
What do you make of this impressive record? Did you ever fly on Concorde? Let us know your thoughts and memories of the iconic supersonic airliner in the comments!
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