Concorde: Yes

It can land in the U.S.--but . . .

After 16 months in the stack over the U.S., the British-French Concorde was cleared by the Federal Government for permanent landing last week--more or less. Transportation Secretary Brock Adams, fresh from a final go-ahead conversation with President Carter, said that the 16 Concordes already built or abuilding will be flagged past federal noise regulations that would have banned them. Any that follow will have to meet tougher noise standards yet to be drafted.

That may be an academic point. Local authorities can still block the Concorde from most airports. Moreover a strong threat arose last week that no more Concordes would ever be built. After a select committee of Parliament added up the staggering losses that the British government was likely to take on the present fleet (as much as $340 million), Aero space Minister Gerald Kaufman said that no more Concordes would be constructed unless there were profitable orders--which seems most unlikely.

Still, the plane's British and French makers can take some comfort from having prevailed in the international contretemps. The Concorde could not meet the standards of a 1969 U.S. federal regulation that set maximum noise levels for jets. But the clamor to permit the Concorde into the U.S. was so great that William Coleman, the Ford Administration's Transportation Secretary, decided in 1975 to give the aircraft a 16-month test at Washington's Dulles and New York's John F. Kennedy International airports. Local suits blocked the test at J.F.K., but 100-seat Concordes, carrying more than 80 passengers, have been landing and taking off a dozen times a week at Dulles.

When Concorde will actually start landing in other U.S. cities, and which ones, is still unclear. Last week's decision, coming on the last day of the 16-month test period, formally only extended it. Flights to cities other than Washington and New York cannot begin until a final ruling is issued. That will not be until early 1978, and "it may take longer than that," said Adams. Other airports that could become Concordeports are Anchorage, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle-Tacoma. Any of those can ban the Concorde on their own, despite last week's approval, but, said Adams, "they must do it in a nondiscriminatory manner." That means setting maximum noise levels that also rule out all other aircraft failing to meet the community's noise standard. If that turns out to be the case in New York, the ban by the local Port Authority would be allowed to stand.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.