Well if you're a contract pilot or part timer you get paid by the flight. Like we pay $300 per day for a Citation co-pilot, plus expenses (lunch dinner ect.) Most pilots get paid a salary every year. Like $75,000 a year guareteed and bonus/tips. Then some instructors get paid by the flight hour. They get some thing like $15 an hour in the air and 7 on the ground. Pharachute pilots get paid by the number of jumps. Around 15 dollars a jump. Airline pilots do get paid by the hour. I.E. $45 with a guareentee of 80 hours a month. In the corporate world you fly what the company has. If the company has more then one type of aircraft you maybe flying 2-4 different types of airplanes every week. Most pilot fly different routes every flight, but our Navajo flies one trip 4 days a week so who ever flies that trip does the same leg 2-4 times a week. Most trips are different every flight though. Not sure how it works with the airlines. I know you bid for your flight assignement tho.

in the case of concorde pilots, the one close to retirement took an early package and retired early. There were a few who took management positions, in BA. And the younger pilots were moved to the 777 and 747's, as they already had experiance with those planes.
Other airlines all have their own set of rules for plane retirements

yes you still hear sounds. as for if you were sitting on the nose at mach 1. urmm who knows:)

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It's all relative - when you're inside the "cocoon" that's all travelling faster than the speed of sound, everything in that 'cocoon' is going at the same speed, which is why you can talk normally to your fellow passenger...

(it would be a funny skit to have two people having to trade places to talk - the one forward talks while the one behind "catches" the sound.  The one behind can't answer because as soon as he talks, the sound "falls behind" .... where's Benny Hill when we need him?)

I'm not familiar with airport codes & not sure what you mean by trans-oceanic. The main problem with Concorde was its comparatively short range. London to NY would be on the practical limit. It was not popular because of its general noise & the sonic boom itself when overflying populated areas. For these reasons most countries would not allow it to operate within their airspace. The only scheduled services were a once-daily service between Paris and New York for Air France, and a twice-daily service between London and New York for British Airways. BA also operated a once a week service to Barbados in the winter (Dec-Apr) when the UK weather is not pleasant.

All you ever wanted to know about Concorde here. http://www.concordesst.com/
This page shows the original orders/options which were all eventually cancelled except for those by Air France & BA. http://www.concordesst.com/history/orders.html

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I have no idea & get my information from the horse's mouth - in this case the Concorde site.

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Prospects looked very exciting before countries started banning the aircraft from their airspace. This left very few alternatives for practical regular services. I seem to remember that the NYC authorities took some persuading to allow it at one point. Without this, Concorde would never have become the limited success it was.

i really dont know boths safety records, i have heard of equal number of airbus to boeing accidents.