The SST: Hour of Decision

Soon there will be only two kinds of airlines, those with Concorde and those which take twice as long.

In recent newspaper ads, that was the provocative sales pitch for the Concorde, the supersonic transport developed by Britain and France at a cost of nearly $3 billion. Indeed, the sleek, needle-nosed aircraft can fly 1,400 m.p.h., twice the speed of sound. It cuts trans-atlantic air travel from seven hours to 3%, and can lower the time for a San Francisco-Tokyo run from 11% hours to seven. But the Concorde ads may be prematurely optimistic. The plane has not yet received permission to serve U.S. airports, and unless it does, Franco-British dreams of a new era in air travel may never get very far off the ground.

Final Arguments. The U.S. has long been considering whether or not to allow the Concorde to fly into its airports. Now at last, it is about to decide. At a special hearing held in Washington last week, Secretary of Transportation William Coleman Jr.* listened with judicial impartiality as French and British government officials, environmentalists and U.S. Senators, Representatives, Governors and mayors presented their final arguments for and against admitting the Concorde. At that hearing, Coleman promised to make a decision by early February. His choice will not be easy. A ruling in favor of the Concorde would bring down the wrath of environmentalists, who charge that the craft is too noisy, burns too much fuel and is a threat to the ozone layer. A decision to bar the plane would be considered an unfriendly act by the British and French and could sour U.S. relations with both countries.

The roots of the Concorde conflict run deep. The U.S. launched a program in 1963 aimed at developing its own SST, but then dropped out of the race in 1971 when Congress cut off funds. The lawmakers decided--over the objections of the Nixon Administration--that money for the expensive project could be better used for more important federal programs; they also feared that the SST would endanger the environment.

Those arguments did not deter the Soviets, who were hard at work on their TU-144, or the French and British, who had already ridden out an SST crisis.

When a British Labor government came to power in 1964 shortly after the Concorde program got under way, it decided that Britain could not afford the project and tried to bow out. It changed its mind only after it became clear that the French might sue Britain in the International Court of Justice for failing to live up to the terms of the Franco-British agreement.

The Soviets have already put one of their SSTs (nicknamed "Concordski" by Westerners because of design features obviously copied from the British-French plane) into service on a domestic cargo and mail run from Moscow to the central Asian city of Alma-Ata. The Concorde is not far behind. The French plan to start SST service later this month from Paris to the Senegalese capital of Dakar (2,860 miles) and then on to Rio de Janeiro (another 3,189 miles). At the same time, Britain will launch Concorde flights from London's Heathrow for the 3,162-mile trip to the oil-rich island of Bahrain. But Britain and France must be able to fly the lucrative North Atlantic route if they are to have any chance of making money on their huge Concorde investment. Thus they are seeking permission to land four Concordes a day at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and two a day at Washington's Dulles International.

Cancer Risk. Precedent is on their side. Since 1944 the U.S. has honored bilateral agreements to accept airworthiness certificates awarded to foreign aircraft by their governments--as long as the planes meet standards established by the International Convention on Civil Aviation. In recent years, the French and British have accepted American evaluations of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar without argument. Now they clearly expect the U.S. to do the same with the Concorde, which has undergone more than 5,000 hours of exhaustive flight testing and has been certified as airworthy by both French and British authorities.

For the first time, however, concerns about the environment--rather than airworthiness--are playing a major role in determining the acceptability of a foreign aircraft. Some scientists have speculated that the Concorde's high-altitude emissions of nitrogen oxides could contribute significantly to the destruction of the ozone layer that screens the earth from an overdose of the sun's ultraviolet rays. Using these reports, the Federal Aviation Administration estimates that simply granting the pending Franco-British request for six flights a day could lead to 200 additional cases of skin cancer a year in the U.S.

Many environmentalists also object strongly to the Concorde's noise. An FAA study of the Concorde's environmental impact predicted that the noise produced by the plane would be perceived by people outdoors as being twice as loud as that made by a Boeing 707 and four times as great as that of a DC-10. U.S. opponents describe the Concorde's noise, a low rumble rather than a high-pitched whine, as "devastating." A British cleric from a community near Heathrow who appeared at last week's hearing put it more poetically. "Concorde's noise is unbearable, above the threshold of pain," testified the Rev. Hugh Montifiore. "It is not hell, because hell goes on forever. It is more like a secular form of purgatory, or a gall-bladder attack that comes and goes."

Concorde opponents have a new ally in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Reversing its earlier position in favor of allowing limited SST flights into the U.S., the EPA last month declared that environmental considerations made flights into New York's J.F.K. "undesirable," and those into Washington's Dulles "increasingly questionable." At last week's hearing, Roger Strelow, EPA assistant administrator for air and waste management, told Coleman that "introduction of Concorde service runs directly counter to the noise abatement and other environmental policies and programs of the U.S." He was backed by New York Conservative Senator James Buckley. Said he: "I cannot understand how the interests of those people living in the flight paths of the Concorde can be overridden by those who want to shave a few hours off their flight times."

Small Impact. In pleading the Concorde's case, Gerald Kaufman, British Minister of State in the Department of Industry, pointed out that the FAA'S own study indicated that the environmental impact of the Concorde on New York would be small, its effect on the Dulles area all but nonexistent. Furthermore, he insisted, if Britain and France seriously believed that a limited number of Concorde flights might thin out the ozone layer, they would not be advocating flights that could harm their peoples too. "Your environment is our environment," he told the hearing. "Your ozone layer is our ozone layer."

Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, himself a former military pilot who has flown 153 different types of aircraft, pointed out that military planes have made more than a million supersonic flights without any apparent damage to the ozone layer; he urged the U.S. to let the Concorde land. "If we lock out the Concorde," said Goldwater, "that will be further evidence that the U.S. is becoming a has-been world power."

Concorde's friends have some good points. Most researchers agree that a thinning of the ozone layer would lead to an increase in skin cancer. But there is no hard evidence that the ozone layer has been depleted in recent years, despite both high-altitude jet flight and the widespread use of aerosol sprays; indeed, at least one study suggests that the thickness of the ozone shield actually increased during the 1960s. The Concorde's designers admit that the ship is noisy on takeoff, but they believe that the effects of its noise may be at least partially alleviated by having the plane execute a banking maneuver immediately after takeoff to avoid flying over heavily settled areas.

Many French and British officials are convinced, in fact, that the environmental issue raised by U.S. opponents is actually a smokescreen. The French are still smarting over last July's arms deal in which the U.S. aced out their Mirage F-l combat plane by persuading NATO to choose the American-designed F-16 as its standard fighter. They see U.S. opposition to the Concorde as a move to protect the American aerospace industry, which despite a bad year still supplies 90% to 95% of the commercial aircraft flown outside the Soviet Union. The British take a similar point of view. In a joint statement, the French and British governments warned: "Any move by the U.S. which might be interpreted as protectionist or discriminatory would tend, throughout the world, to threaten the relatively free and uninhibited environment in which aviation products are bought and sold."

There is good reason for the Franco-British concern. Sales of Concordes, which cost some $60 million apiece, have been disappointingly slow. Financially strapped U.S. airlines withdrew their options to purchase the planes three years ago, and only Iran and China have expressed interest in buying any of the three planes remaining unsold out of the initial production run of 16 (the British and French own 13).

Added Cost. Regular North Atlantic flights might help the Franco-British team to sell its planes. But they are unlikely to generate enough orders to repay the huge investment in the Concorde. A leading British aerospace writer estimates that 130 must be sold before the two countries can make back their development costs. A major reason for the dim sales prospects is the Concorde's operating cost. The plane seats a maximum of 140 passengers (v. an average of 370 in the 747) and burns two to three times as much fuel per seat mile as subsonic planes. To compensate for the added operating cost, Concorde passengers will have to pay at least 20% more than equivalent first-class fares on subsonic jets.

Still, some U.S. airplane manufacturers hope that the Concorde gets the green light at U.S. airports. They feel that the start of Concorde service would spur interest in their own efforts to develop an economical, environmentally acceptable SST, which the U.S. could build and fly by the 1990s. Considering the fact that no one is really sure about the Concorde's adverse effects on the environment, many airline executives also note that it would simply be unfair--and inimical to good international relations--to keep it out.

The Concorde may prove to be an environmental mistake and an economic disaster. But it may also prove to be relatively harmless and convenient, and a first step toward a new era in flight. The best way to decide whether it is a boon or a bane is to grant the Franco-British request for limited service.

*Coleman has authority to make the decision but could be overruled by President Ford.

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