THE Yorkshire Air Museum's bid to bring Concorde to the region is soaring once more today after air bosses backed down over cash demands.

The Elvington-based attraction was able to convince British Airways chiefs that they could house the supersonic flyer immediately - despite demands that they come up with £600,000 in guarantees.

Following a two-hour meeting with British Airways (BA) at Heathrow yesterday, museum director Ian Reed was able to reveal that the company had been reassured by the attraction's proposals.

He said: "It was very good. They were very impressed with what we had to say and we are looking forward to the next stage.

"We have assured them that we can house the aircraft immediately in our existing hangars and they seemed quite happy with those plans."

Concorde will eventually find a home in the museum's planned new hangar. A lottery bid to fund the proposals is expected to be granted in October, but BA had told the museum it was not prepared to wait that long.

Mr Reed said the museum was able to talk BA bosses around, and he is now waiting to hear some time in August whether the bid has been successful.

A total of 12 sites across the world are in the hunt for one of BA's seven-strong Concorde fleet.

Mr Reed said: "They are putting the proposals to their board on July 30 and, in the meantime, they will be sending a delegation to visit us at Elvington.

"We produced a comprehensive dossier of our plans to show them, and gave them copies of the Evening Press, which they took away with them.

"We have achieved what we hoped for and we are confident that our bid is now back on track."

The Evening Press-

sponsored Yorkshire Air Show takes place at Elvington Airfield on August 24/25. The stars of the show will be the Red Arrows. To book tickets phone 01759 305851.

Updated: 10:43 Saturday, July 12, 2003