On 11 April 2003, Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson announced that the company was interested in purchasing British Airways' Concorde fleet "for the same price that they were given them for – one pound".[215][216] British Airways dismissed the idea, prompting Virgin to increase their offer to £1 million each.[217][218] Branson claimed that when BA was privatised, a clause in the agreement required them to allow another British airline to operate Concorde if BA ceased to do so, but the Government denied the existence of such a clause.[219] In October 2003, Branson wrote in The Economist that his final offer was "over £5 million" and that he had intended to operate the fleet "for many years to come".[220] The chances for keeping Concorde in service were stifled by Airbus's lack of support for continued maintenance.[221][222][N 7]