How to Avoid Making Business Decisions Like A Losing Gambler

The Concorde fallacy is a mental bias where people continue spending resources (money, time, or effort) on failing projects because of a prior commitment.

Let’s see the story of how a mental error was named after Concorde. And how to avoid it.

Concorde was an impressive aircraft.

It had an elegant design, with a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound, and it allowed New York — London trip to be only 3 hours.

So it was a huge sensation when it started flying and it still has a legendary status among aviation geeks today.

Let’s be honest, Concorde was cool (Image Credit: British Airways)

How the Concorde project became a fallacy

But Concorde had many problems as a project.

First, it had a huge cost.

State-owned British and French companies (Aérospatiale & BAC) jointly started developing the plan in the early 1960s.

The initial estimation of the project’s cost was £1.5 billion with today’s money, but eventually, it required £9.43 billion. Because of its cost, only 20 Concordes were produced.