As British Airways prepares a Concorde for a supersonic test flight, analysts said today one daily London-New York flight for a year would return the grounded service to break-even status.
Profits contribution would be restored to around £20 million sterling ($28 million) on two daily flights and attract back passengers who used to return on first-class seats to London on British Airways's supersonic aircraft, analysts said.
"It has been a drag of about £15 million or £20 million this year, but they've said that once they've got one daily flight they'll be at break-even," Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein analyst Mr Mike Powell said
The British and French supersonic airliner fleets were grounded after an Air France Concorde crashed near Paris almost a year ago, killing 113 people.
Since then the two operators have installed protective fuel tank linings and have been doing tests on the aircraft to obtain regulatory approval to resume passenger flights.
Mr Powell said British Airways has estimated that two daily trans-Atlantic flights over a year would likely return the service to annual profits of around £20 million sterling.