Boarding announcement for BA 001 Concorde finally came. We would board from the rear of the aircraft first (rows 11 to 26). I grabbed my bags, took out my passport and boarding pass and got in line. Thank goodness they were collecting the smaller portion of the boarding pass, letting us keep the large portion (the portion with the Concorde logo). There was another Concorde logo on the doorway and people were stopping to pose next to it for photos. I decided to skip that photo opportunity and headed downstairs to the jetway, where I was surprised to find them doing random bag checks. The person in front of me got picked, I continued onto the jetway and got on board. The door was quite short as I had to dip my head to enter (and I am not a tall person). The flight attendant at the door checked my boarding pass and told me my seat would be in the front of the second cabin (but I knew that already). I walked through the first cabin, past the lavatories, the emergency doors, and the closets, to find my seatmate blocking the aisle taking photos of the cabin. He had to crouch down as I opened the overhead bin to put my bags in. The overhead bin was so small, my camera bag, my backpack, and my seatmate's briefcase pretty much filled it.

Departure board in the lounge. My flight is the second one on the list.

Concorde boards directly from the lounge. This is the entrance to the aircraft...quite fancy!

My boarding pass.

I took my seat 12D, grabbed my camera and told my seatmate I was going to get a photo of the cabin as well. He offered to get a photo of me in the aisle...while everyone was still boarding! People were very cordial...they indulged us shutterbugs and waited while I had my photo taken. As it turned out, everyone else was doing the same thing! As more and more people came on board, flashes were going off left and right. People were getting photos taken in their seats, in the aisles, of the cabin speed displays showing "Welcome to Concorde". I was immediately reminded of the "mob scene" in front of the Mona Lisa at the Lovure! Lots of excited people with cameras...and I am one of them!

I looked at the window. I knew they were tiny, but not that tiny. The inside window is about the size of a normal airliner window. But the outside window is only a bit larger than a closed passport!

 
Me in the aisle. The narrow cabin is quite obvious in this shot.

Just to show how tiny the windows are, here is a comparison with my passport.

I played with the cradle seat. It was quite interesting. The back and bottom portions of the seat reclined in unison. The headrest was height adjustable as well. It seemed comfortable to sleep in fully reclined, but I didn't try it. The armrest was extremely narrow. If you think you cannot share the armrest on a 757, it's impossible on Concorde! And when you fold the armrest up, it twists away into the seat...neat! As expected, there was lots of legroom.

As my seatmate pointed out, even though the seats were new, there were many clues we were in an airplane from the 70s. For example, the overhead service units, with the push buttons for the reading lamps and the flight attendant call push button, just looked old and yellowed. The air vents and the fasten seatbelt and no smoking lights look rather dated as well. The audio adjustment knobs were rotary style. The channel dial did not have "click" indentations between channels, so you had to "dial in" on a particular channel.

Most all the items in the seat pocket were fresh and new. There was the usual safety card, airsickness bag, BA in-flight magazine "High Life", and direction card for filling out immigration forms. Concorde-unique items included "Concorde the Collection" in-flight shopping catalog (on-line website here), Concorde "The Briefing" magazine, and a Sennheiser headphone (with the older BA logo). The headphone has the largest earpieces I have ever seen on an airline issue headset!

I would guess the airplane was 80 to 90% full. The row in front and behind us remained empty, so my seatmate moved to the window seat behind us. He asked a flight attendant whether the Concorde parked next to us was the back-up airplane for our flight. He said yes, and they even had to use it on occasion.

The captain came over the PA and told us we were starting the engines. He urged everyone to watch to safety demonstration. He would return later to brief us more about our "unique airplane".

 
Me in seat 12D.

Looking across the aisle at seats 12A and B. I took this without the flash to keep the light level and colors as natural as possible.
Taken during cruise while the occupants were out and about, hence the "used" look of the seats.