Airport ’80 The Concorde (aka Airport 79 (USA)  

Review: written 2007

Weakest of the Airport franchise

Airport 79 `The Concorde' is undoubtedly the worst in the Airport franchise. It has the feel of a Euro-production, with poor special effects to match. The Concorde just cannot be shown realistically enough in any of the shots to allow us to withhold our suspension of belief. Again, the character actors are trotted out - Alain Delon, Robert Wagner, even Sylvia Kristel! And of course, the inevitable George Kennedy to provide a semblance of a link with previous movies. The plot is the most ridiculous, with multiple attempts to destroy the Concorde caused by one passenger having documents destined to bring down a company. Missiles, jet aircraft attacks and the like follows..

In fact, while the previous movies attempted some sort of credibility, the aerobatics performed by a supersonic aircraft here are just too ludicrous, and it is easy to see why this was laughed off the screen on its first performances. I’m sure I remember seeing the pilot sticking his hand out the window to fire a flare, but I may have imagined it as by this time my head was buried in my hands in despair.

An interesting footnote - the aircraft seen in the real flying scenes was subsequently sold to Air France, and is the same Concorde which crashed on take off in 2000, thereby ending the era of supersonic passenger travel.