I rather fear the main reason Richard Branson has been involved is for PR purposes. I think he knew that he would never be given a Concorde, so it was a very safe thing to do...

According to BA it had been flying with only about 20 people onboard a flight since the combination of the Air France crash, 9/11 and the US economic downturn.

The airframes are 30 years old, so the longer it went on the more it cost to use them.