To See Concorde Fly Again

How amazing would that be? Attending the "Save Concorde" evening last week gave me a really strong sense of what a stunning British icon we have lost. I can recall what a thrill it was to look up and see it flying over and remember our excitement when I pointed Concorde out to my daughter through the air plane window as we taxied round Heathrow. Who can forget the amazing spectacle of the fly past at the Queen's jubilee with Concorde leading the Red Arrows? What a shame it couldn't be part of the Diamond jubilee or the Olympic ceremonies.

Last Thursday was the 10th anniversary of the last commercial flight by Concorde and I wonder now how many people, like me, regret never having flown on her? I was lucky enough to mark the occasion by having dinner with the incredible Mr Fred Finn (in the photograph) who appears in the Guinness Book of Records for having flown the most miles, 15 million in fact, and for having flown 718 times on Concorde.

Mr Finn still makes his living by travelling the world, not for his employer any more but to speak to people about his travels and most particularly his experiences on Concorde. Without this remarkable aircraft he would not have this career as it would not have been possible to travel so many miles.

The function I was attending was held by the Save Concorde group in commemoration (not celebration) of the last commercial flight. My colleague Martin and I were there to promote our fine art prints of Concorde with authenticated seat belts, which I have to say were received with huge enthusiasm, as well as to donate one of the prints for a silent auction.

In return we received endorsement from Fred for our website: www.britishairwaysconcorde.com. He told us that he didn't do this lightly but he was really impressed with the site and loved the prints. Thanks Fred and don't forget to ask Richard Branson to have a look at the site next time you see him! (Thanks also to Sara Hemp from Creative Remedy for all her hard work developing the site).

The dinner menu was carefully chosen from the most popular dishes served on Concorde:

Starters

Leek and Potato Soup or Prawn Cocktail

Main

Poached Salmon or Roast Lamb (Not chicken or beef? I hear you ask)

Dessert

New York Cheese Cake or Creme Brule

The meal was accompanied by videos of the last flight and landing along with the Sky News coverage and followed by a talk from Fred, a lovely gentleman with a naughty edge! Some of Fred's experiences include being hijacked and landing without the wheels in place! For a laugh take a look at the YouTube video of him performing his version of the safety spiel on Concorde - after a few cocktails!

According to Fred there is no such thing as "jet lag" (although perhaps he was never in one time zone long enough to find out!) Fred reckons it is all about dehydration. His advice is to set your watch to the destination time as soon as you get on board and start living, eating and sleeping in that time. Drink lots, moisturise your face frequently and close your eyes for a few minutes every hour to keep them moist.

Overall it was a most enjoyable and interesting evening. Save Concorde is a serious group of people here and in France who are determined to see Concorde fly again. Apparently it is a combination of politics and British Airways that are keeping it on the ground. 

The group had 11,000 members on the morning of the 24th, but due to some blogging, facebook and twitter activity from a couple of individuals at the event, grew to 11,500 by the end of the day. A thought provoking lesson in the power and reach of social media.

Written by Jane Fransen-Hale: Director JEM Retail Consultants.

We Have Lift Off!

In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the final flights of Concorde the new venture I have been working on (and mentioned in a previous blog) goes live after 6-weeks of planning and design work.

Although the original idea was to go-live with our new venture in October to coincide with the final commercial flight of Concorde on the 24th of that month my colleague and I took the decision to advertise in the October edition of Surrey life which, it turns out, is first published on the 24th September. Panic!

The iconic plane, which halved the flight time to New York making it possible to commute for the day, cost passengers £9,000 a ticket, reached 1,350 miles per hour (twice the speed of sound) and flew 60,000 feet over the Atlantic.

On the occasion of its final flight British Airways Chief Rod Eddington said there was a mixture of "sadness and celebration" about its retirement. Actress Joan Collins, who flew on Concorde 10 times and was on board the final flight, expressed the sentiments of the 2.5 million passengers to have flown supersonically on the aircraft, when she described the end of the era as "tragic".

Leaning heavily on the goodwill of our website designer Sara from Creative Remedy we put the finishing touches to our design so that we can test the link with Paypal. We have also had to quickly pull together the advert for Surrey Life and have accepted an invitation to a gala event on the 24th October with the Save Concorde Group.

Fingers crossed that our planning system known by the acronym of SWAG (Scientific Wild-Ass Guessing) won't be too wide of the mark and that the supply chain we have put in place works successfully and can keep up with demand.

Take a look at the outcome of all our hard work on: www.britishairwaysconcorde.com.

Written by Jane Fransen-Hale: JEM Retail Consultants.

Flying High Between Contracts

While being a consultant gives me the opportunity to work with a variety of interesting people on exciting change programmes, gaps between contracts are an occupational hazard. Oscar Wilde said "a break from employment is not a holiday" and on this occasion I decided to do something more constructive with my break than play tennis and chase the next assignment.

Looking back on it now I was foolish not to have flown off to some exotic destination the moment my last contract ended, isn't hindsight a wonderful thing? Instead I have filled my time with various, mainly none paying, projects that have gradually grown to the point that I find myself "working" at something or other 7 days a week. So now my situation will move from working all the time whilst unemployed, to working in full time employment without ever having the holiday on an exotic beach in between!

So what am I busy with I hear you ask? Well I will tell you about one of those projects and if this blog gets enough hits to keep Mike happy and off my back for a couple of days, then I will write about another one.

Concorde was one of the most beautiful and iconic aircraft ever built. It was also one of the most exclusive with just 20 being made between 1966 and 1979 and only 14 of them ever entering commercial service with BA and Air France.

October 24th this year marks the 10th anniversary of the last commercial flight by Concorde when 3 flights landed at Heathrow within 5 minutes of each other to "cheers and tears" according to Joan Collins who was on the last of them arriving at 16:05. The last flight ever was on November 26th 2003 when Concorde was flown from Heathrow to its birth place at Filton Airfield near Bristol carrying 100 BA staff.

After more than 250,000 hours of flight time Concorde had come home.

But I am starting to sound like Wikipedia. The point of this is that a friend of mine has a source of Concorde memorabilia including some stunning fine art prints signed by Concorde pilots and stylishly framed with the unusual addition of an authenticated seat belt. As you can imagine these products have extremely limited availability making them very collectable and my friend wanted to market them to coincide with the forthcoming anniversaries. Unfortunately he didn't have the time, which is where I came in.

Going with a website was the obvious thing to do and Sara at Creative Remedy, who built the website for JEM Retail Consultants, was on hand to help. What was less straightforward was settling on a price point that will provide the required margin and return on investment but not put off the customer. As these are unique items there was really nothing to go on.

Then there was trying to estimate the demand. The exclusivity is a great selling point for the prospective buyer but could be a stock availability nightmare for us. There is no planning system here full of 2-years sales history. There is no tried and tested customer profile. The largest task of all is the search for the potential customer base and finding ways of drawing them onto the website.

I think even my trusted colleague Erica would forgive me for resorting to a spreadsheet if, in fact, that would even help. What will the take up be? Will 2 of us have the capacity to fulfil the orders? Will our supply chain be fast and robust enough to meet sales? Do we need to source more products? Other products? We discuss and debate all of these questions; we then stick our fingers in the air and grab numbers out of the sky. Hopefully that doesn't sound like your planning system. Or does it?

Kidding apart I am excited about the venture. The website will go live on Tuesday 24th September when I will send out a quick update to let you know the details and keep you informed of its progress, hopefully success and the performance of our planning and merchandising system!

Written by Jane Fransen-Hale: JEM Retail Consultants.