In the 1960s, while the commercial airline industry was still in its early years, the aviation business was making great technological strides in terms of aircraft speed and altitude, and the crushing impacts of the Arab oil embargo were still many years away.

The British and French governments collaborated forces to develop a jet transport for the future, that would be far more advanced than the sub-sonic airliners built by the Americans in the form of the Douglas DC-8 and Boeing 707. So, the goal was to produce a supersonic passenger jet transport capable of carrying 100 passengers in first class comfort across the Atlantic in just a few hours, versus the six or seven hours journey time by conventional jet airliner.