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Pan American World Airways1jpgThe Pan Am logo
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180px
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PA
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PAA
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Clipper
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Pan Am Corp
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1927 (as Pan American Airways)
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New York, New York
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Juan T Trippe ( CEO 1927-68), Harold Gray ( CEO 1968-69), Najeeb Halaby ( CEO 1969-71), William T Seawell ( CEO 1971-81), C Edward Acker ( CEO 1981-88), Thomas G Plaskett ( CEO 1988-91), Russell L Ray, Jr ( CEO 1991)
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Miami International Airport <br> John F Kennedy International Airport <br> San Francisco International Airport <br> Houston Intercontinental Airport
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Washington Dulles International Airport <br> Boston Logan International Airport <br> Los Angeles International Airport <br> London Heathrow Airport <br> Frankfurt International Airport <br> Berlin Tegel International Airport <br> Honolulu International Airport <br> Tokyo International Airport ( Narita after 1978)
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WorldPass
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Clipper Club
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226 (Airbus A300, A310 Boeing 727, 737, 747)
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All six continents at its peak
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Pan Am Historical Foundation
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, commonly known as '''Pan Am''', was the principal international
Airline of the
United States from the 1930s until its collapse in 1991. Originally founded as a
Seaplane service out of
Key West ,
Florida , the airline became a major company credited with many innovations that shaped the international airline industry, including the widespread use of
Jet Aircraft ,
Jumbo Jet s, and computerized reservation systems. Identified by its blue globe logo and the use of the word "
Clipper " in aircraft names and
Call Sign s, the airline was a cultural icon of the 20th century, and the unofficial
Flag Carrier of the United States.
Pan Am went through two reincarnations after 1991. The second Pan Am operated from 1996 to 1998 with a focus on low-cost, long-distance flights between the U.S. and the
Caribbean . The third incarnation based in
Portsmouth ,
New Hampshire , ceased operations in 2004. (
Boston-Maine Airways , a sister company of the third incarnation, still operates the Pan Am Clipper Connection brand.) Except for the second incarnation, whose
IATA Airline Designator was , Pan Am still used the
IATA code '''PA''' and the
ICAO code '''PAA''', though neither incarnation had a relationship to the original Pan Am. The third incarnation also had no relationship to the second incarnation of the mid-1990s.
Pan American Airways Incorporated was founded on
March 14 1927 , by Major
Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and partners. Their shell company was able to obtain the U.S. mail delivery contract to
Cuba , but lacked the physical assets to do the job. On
June 2 ,
1927 ,
Juan Trippe formed the Aviation Corporation of America with the backing of powerful and politically-connected financiers
William A. Rockefeller ,
Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney , and others; Whitney served as the company's president. Their operation had the all-important landing rights for
Havana , having acquired a small airline established in 1926 by John K. Montgomery and Richard B. Bevier as a
Seaplane service from
Key West , Florida to Havana. The Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean Airways company was established on
October 11 ,
1927 , by
New York City Investment Bank er Richard Hoyt, who served as president. The three companies merged into a
Holding Company called the
Aviation Corporation Of The Americas on
June 23 1928 .
Richard Hoyt was named as chairman of the new company, but Trippe and his partners held forty percent of the equity and Whitney was made president. Trippe became the operational head of the new Pan American Airways Incorporated, created as the primary operating
Subsidiary of Aviation Corporation of the Americas.
The U.S. government had approved the original Pan Am's mail delivery contract with little objection, out of fears that the
German -owned
Colombian carrier
SCADTA would have no competition in bidding for routes between
Latin America and the
United States . The government further helped Pan Am by insulating it from its American competitors, seeing the airline as the "chosen instrument" for U.S. foreign air routes. The airline expanded, due in part to its virtual monopoly on foreign airmail contracts.
in
Miami , Florida, was a hub of inter-American travel during the 1930s and 1940s.]]
Trippe and his associates planned to extend Pan Am's network through all of Central and South America. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Pan Am purchased a number of ailing or defunct airlines in Central and
South America , and negotiated with postal officials to win most of the government's airmail contracts to the region. In September 1929, Trippe toured Latin America with
Charles Lindbergh to negotiate landing rights in a number of countries, including SCADTA's home turf of Colombia. By the end of the year, Pan Am offered flights down the west coast of South America to
Peru . The following year, Pan Am purchased the
New York, Rio, And Buenos Aires Line (NYRBA), giving it a seaplane route along the east coast of South America to
Buenos Aires ,
Argentina , and westbound to
Santiago ,
Chile .
Pan Am's holding company, the Aviation Corporation of the Americas, was one of the hottest stocks on the
New York Curb Exchange in 1929, and flurries of speculation surrounded each of its new route awards. On a single day in March, its stock rose 50% in value. Trippe and his associates had to fight off a takeover attempt by the
United Aircraft And Transport Corporation to keep their control over Pan Am (UATC was the parent company of what are now
Boeing ,
Pratt & Whitney , and
United Airlines ).
was one of Pan Am's earlier flying boats and was used to survey the San Francisco-China route.]]
While Pan Am was developing its South American network, it also negotiated with
Bernt Balchen , of the Norwegian Airline DNL, in 1937 for a co-operative Trans-Atlantic flight to Europe. The agreement was for Pan Am to use its Clippers on flights from New York to
Reykjavik ,
Iceland ; DNL would then take over with their
Sikorsky S-43 aircraft onwards to
Bergen ,
Norway . This idea was dropped when Pan Am pulled out and instead turned to Britain and France to begin seaplane service between the
United States and
Europe .
Britain 's state-owned
Imperial Airways was eager to cooperate with Pan Am, but
France was less willing to help, because its state carrier
Aéropostale was a major player in Latin America and a Pan Am competitor on some routes. Eventually, Pan Am reached an agreement with both countries to offer service from
Norfolk ,
Virginia , to Europe via
Bermuda and the
Azores using
Sikorsky S-40 Flying Boat s. Pan Am also procured an airmail contract from Boston to
Halifax .
class passenger-carrying flying boat launched the first trans-Pacific air-mail service on
November 22 ,
1935 .]]
Pan Am planned to start land plane service over (CNAC) network. The Boeing 314s were also used on transatlantic routes starting in 1939.
The "Clippers"—the name harking back to the 19th-century
Clipper Ship s—were the only American passenger aircraft of the time capable of
Intercontinental travel. To compete with
Ocean Liner s, the airline offered
First-class seats on such flights, and the style of flight crews became more formal. Instead of being leather-jacketed, silk-scarved airmail pilots, the crews of the "Clippers" wore naval-style uniforms and adopted a set procession when boarding the airplane. However, during
World War II most of the Clippers were pressed into the military, with Pan Am flight crews operating the airplanes under contract. During this era, Pan Am pioneered a new air route across western and central
Africa to
Iran , and in early 1942, the airline became the first to operate a route circumnavigating the globe. Another first was in January 1943, when
Franklin Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to fly abroad, in the ''Dixie Clipper''. It was also during this period that ''
Star Trek '' creator
Gene Roddenberry was a Clipper pilot. He was aboard the ''Clipper Eclipse'' when it crashed in
Syria on
June 19 ,
1947 .
After the war, Pan American's fleet was quickly replaced by faster airplanes, such as the
Boeing 377 ,
Douglas DC-6 , and
Lockheed Constellation . Although Pan Am lobbied intensively to enhance its position as the nation's international airline, it lost that distinction—first to
American Overseas Airways , and later to a number of carriers designated to compete with Pan Am in certain markets, such as
TWA to Europe,
Braniff to
South America , and
Northwest Orient to East Asia. In 1950, shortly after starting an around-the-world service and developing the concept of "economy class" passenger service, Pan American Airways, Inc. was renamed Pan American World Airways, Inc.
For almost 40 years, Pan Am Flight 001 ruled all westbound air travel with a flight that originated in San Francisco and then stopped around the globe. These stops included
Honolulu ,
Tokyo ,
Hong Kong ,
Bangkok ,
Delhi ,
Beirut ,
Istanbul ,
Frankfurt ,
London and finally New York. The westbound flight lasted 46 hours after its first take-off.
With strong competition on many of its routes, Pan Am began investing in innovations such as jet and
Wide-body Airplanes . Pan Am purchased the
DC-8 and the
Boeing 707 , which Boeing modified to seat six passengers across instead of five under pressure from Pan Am. The airline inaugurated transatlantic jet service from New York to Paris on
October 26 ,
1958 , with a Boeing 707 named the ''Clipper America''. Pan Am was a launch customer of the
Boeing 747 , initially ordering 25 of them in April 1966, and was the first to operate scheduled 747 service in 1970. The airline was also one of the first three airlines to sign options for the
Concorde , but like other airlines that took out options—with the exception of
British Overseas Airways Corporation and
Air France —it did not actually purchase the supersonic jet. It was also a potential customer for the abandoned
Boeing 2707 , the American supersonic project that never saw service.
In the 1950s, Pan Am diversified into other areas. Some of the businesses that Pan Am bought into included a hotel chain, the
InterContinental Hotel , and a business jet, the
Falcon . The airline was involved in creating a missile-tracking range in the South Atlantic, and in operating a nuclear-engine testing laboratory in
Nevada .
flight in 1958, inaugurating the Jet Age in the United States.]]
With traffic increasing in 1962, Pan Am commissioned
IBM to build PANAMAC, a large computer that booked airline and hotel reservations. It also held large amounts of information about cities, countries, airports, aircraft, hotels, and restaurants. The computer came to occupy the fourth floor of the
Pan Am Building , which was then under construction in Manhattan and was to be the largest commercial office building in the world for some time.
Pan Am also built
"Worldport" , a terminal building at
John F. Kennedy International Airport that was the world's largest airline terminal for many years. It was distinguished by its elliptical, four-acre (16,000 m²) roof, suspended far from the outside columns of the terminal below by 32 sets of steel posts and cables. The terminal was designed to allow passengers to board and disembark via stairs without getting wet by parking the nose of the airplanes under the overhang. The introduction of the
Jetbridge made this feature obsolete.
At its peak, Pan Am was providing scheduled service to every continent except for
Antarctica . Many of its routes were between
New York ,
Europe , and
South America , and between
Miami and the
Caribbean . Starting in 1964, the airline was providing
Helicopter service between New York's major airports and Manhattan. Aside from the DC-8, the Boeing 707 and 747, the Pan Am jet fleet also included
Boeing 720 s,
727 s (which replaced the 720s),
737 s, and
747SP s, which allowed Pan Am to fly nonstop flights from New York to Tokyo. The airline also operated
Lockheed L-1011 s,
DC-10 s, and
Airbus A300 s and
A310 s.
The airline also participated in several notable humanitarian flights. Pan Am operated 650 flights a week between
West Germany and
West Berlin , first with the
DC-6B and, in 1966, with the Boeing 727. Pan Am also flew R&R (Rest and Recreation) flights during the
Vietnam War . These flights carried American service personnel for R&R leaves in
Hong Kong ,
Tokyo , and other Asian cities.
The
1973 Energy Crisis significantly impacted Pan Am's operational costs. In addition to high fuel prices, low demand for air travel and an oversupply in the international air travel market (partly caused by federal route awards to other airlines, such as the
Transpacific Route Case ) reduced the number of passengers Pan Am carried, as well as its profit margins. Like other major airlines Pan Am had invested in a large fleet of new 747s with the expectation that demand for air travel would continue to rise, which was not the case.
To remain competitive with other airlines, Pan Am began trying to make inroads in the U.S. domestic market. After several failed attempts to win approval for domestic routes, the enactment of
Airline Deregulation finally allowed Pan Am to begin flights between its U.S. gateways in 1979. On the other hand, deregulation hurt Pan Am since the airline did not have a domestic route system beforehand, a result of
Juan Trippe 's focus on dominating the overseas market. Meanwhile, airlines with domestic routes were now competing with Pan Am on international routes as well.
Under the direction of Chairman
William Seawell , Pan Am grew a domestic-route network overnight by absorbing
National Airlines in 1980. However, a bidding war caused Pan Am to pay far more than the actual value of National Airlines. The combined company continued to accumulate debt due to incompatible fleets (Pan Am had L-1011s with
Rolls-Royce engines while National used DC-10s with
GE engines), incompatible route networks (National's operations concentrated on Florida), and incompatible corporate cultures. Seawell attempted to save the airline by selling off some of its assets, including the
Pan Am Building to
MetLife in 1981 and the company's entire Pacific route network to
United Airlines in 1985. The extra money was invested in new aircraft such as the
Airbus A310 and
Airbus A320 , although the A320s were never delivered. The airline also started a shuttle service between
Boston ,
New York , and
Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, financial losses as well as criticism of poor services continued to plague Pan Am.
Pan Am's iconic image also made it a target for
Terrorist s. In an attempt to convince the public that the airline was safe to fly with and to address lapses in its own security, Pan Am created a security system called Alert Management Systems in 1986. The new system did little to improve security. This was further exacerbated by financial concerns, in which the airline decided to keep security at a minimum so as to not inconvenience its passengers and lose business during departure. The
FAA fined Pan Am for nineteen security failures, out of the 236 that were detected amongst 29 airlines in December 1988.
After the
Lockerbie Bombing , the airline finally fell apart. Many travelers avoided booking on Pan Am as they had begun to associate the airline with danger. Faced with a
$ 300 million lawsuit filed by more than 100 families of the victims, the airline subpoenaed records of six U.S. government agencies, including the
CIA , the
Drug Enforcement Administration , and the
State Department . Though the records suggested that the U.S. government was aware of warnings of a bombing and failed to pass the information to the airline, the families claimed that Pan Am was attempting to shift the blame.
In March 1991, the airline sold off its profitable
London Heathrow routes, arguably Pan Am's biggest international destination, to
United Airlines . This left Pan Am with its only London flights being two daily flights to
Gatwick . The
Gulf War brought transatlantic air traffic to a trickle and forced Pan Am to declare
Bankruptcy in January 1991.
Delta Air Lines purchased the remaining profitable assets of Pan Am, including its remaining European routes and the Pan Am Worldport at JFK Airport, and injected some cash into a smaller Pan Am predominantly serving the Caribbean and Latin America. During that time, Pan Am continued to incur heavy losses. Its operations finally ended on
December 4 ,
1991 , when Delta cut off its support. The airline's last scheduled flight was Pan Am Flight 436 from
Bridgetown, Barbados , to
Miami . The plane was a Boeing 727 named the ''Clipper Goodwill''. Pan Am's last remaining hub at
Miami International Airport was split during the following years between
United Airlines , who took most of the routes, and
American Airlines , who took most of the terminal space.
A new investment group including
Charles Cobb , the former Ambassador to
Iceland , purchased the rights to the Pan American brand after the original carrier declared
Bankruptcy . In September 1996, Pan Am II was started with an
Airbus A300 named the ''Clipper Fair Wind''. The goal was to provide low-cost, long-distance travel to major U.S. and Caribbean cities. The new airline was led by the last Vice Chairman and Chief Operations Officer of Pan Am,
Marty Shugrue , who also helped in the creation of the WorldPass frequent flyer program and who served as President of
American Airlines and later trustee of the
Eastern Airlines estate.
In September 1997, Pan Am Corporation, the airline operation's holding company, bought
Carnival Airlines . However, the rapid expansion and economic troubles of the two companies were too much for the new Pan Am—it only survived for two years before declaring bankruptcy. Before Pan Am and Carnival could fully merge, the holding company and its two independently operated airlines, Pan Am and Carnival, filed bankruptcy and ceased scheduled flight operations in February 1998. The operating certificate used for the first reincarnated Pan Am was abandoned in favor of the acquired Carnival's operating certificate. Pan Am, now operating with the Carnival certificate, quickly resumed limited charter operations while new owner
Guilford Transportation Industries acquired certain assets of the bankrupt companies after court approval. The new company emerged from bankruptcy in June 1998.
In June
1998 , the Pan Am brand was sold to
Guilford Transportation Industries , a
Railroad company headed by
Tim Mellon of the
Pittsburgh banking family. Guilford launched Pan American Airways with a fleet of seven
Boeing 727 s. The third incarnation resumed scheduled operations in October 1999 and flew to nine cities in
New England ,
Florida , the Canadian Maritimes and
Puerto Rico . The focus was on secondary airports such as
Orlando Sanford International Airport instead of
Orlando International Airport , and
Pease International Airport and
Worcester Regional Airport instead of the crowded
Logan International Airport in the
Boston area. Pan Am later had cooperative service arrangements with
Boston-Maine Airways , a subsidiary incorporated by the airline in March 1999.
Guilford ceased operating Pan Am on
November 1 ,
2004 . Operations were transferred to
Boston-Maine Airways , which resumed 727 service under the "Pan Am Clipper Connection" brand from
February 17 ,
2005 .
Pan Am planes were involved in 40 incidents, several of which were fatal. The first occurred on
July 16 ,
1932 , when a
Ford Trimotor crashed into a mountain in
Vitacura ,
Chile . All nine people on board perished. The last fatal incident was
Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. The plane, a Boeing 747 named the ''Clipper Maid of the Seas'', exploded in mid-flight over
Lockerbie, Scotland , due to a bomb placed in its cargo hold by
Terrorists . All 259 passengers and crew on board were killed as well as 11 people on the ground.
One of the accidents that involved a Pan Am plane led to the
FAA 's ordering the installation of safety devices on airplanes. A Pan Am 707, named the ''Clipper Tradewind'' and operating as
Pan Am Flight 214 , was in a
Holding Pattern on a flight from
Baltimore to
Philadelphia when it was last seen going down in flames on
December 8 ,
1963 . It was determined that lightning had ignited vapors in the plane's fuel tanks. As a result of the disaster, lightning discharge wicks were installed on all commercial airliners.
Pan Am experienced other fatal incidents that were the result of
Terrorism . On
December 17 ,
1973 , bombs were thrown by a
Palestinian group into
Pan Am Flight 110 (a 707 named the ''Clipper Celestial'') in
Rome, Italy . The airplane burned and 30 people were killed. A 747 named the ''Clipper Empress of the Seas'', operating as
Pan Am Flight 73 , was
Hijacked on
September 5 ,
1986 . Twenty people were killed when the airplane was stormed on the ground in
Karachi, Pakistan .
Another Pan Am 747, the ''Clipper Victor'', was involved in the
Tenerife Disaster on
March 27 ,
1977 , the worst disaster in aviation history (excepting the events of
9/11 ). The ''Victor'', operating as a charter flight from
Los Angeles to
Las Palmas in the
Canary Islands , was diverted to
Tenerife due to a bomb scare at Las Palmas. A
KLM 747 taking off without explicit permission collided with it on the runway. A total of 583 people were killed, 335 of them from the Pan Am plane. The incident led to reforms including improvements in communications between flight crews and ground control.
Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan Am's third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from
London Heathrow Airport to New York's
John F. Kennedy International Airport . On
December 21 ,
1988 , the aircraft flying this route, a Boeing 747-121 registered N739PA and named ''Clipper Maid of the Seas'', was blown up as it flew over
Lockerbie ,
Dumfries And Galloway , Scotland, when 12 to 16 oz (340 to 450 g) of plastic explosive was detonated in its forward cargo hold, triggering a sequence of events that led to the rapid destruction of the aircraft. Two hundred seventy people from 21 countries died, including 11 people on the ground.
Pan Am held a lofty position in the popular culture of the
Cold War era. One of the most famous images of the company was
The Beatles '
1964 arrival at JFK Airport aboard a Pan Am
Boeing 707 -331, ''Clipper Defiance''. In recent years, Guilford Transportation Industries has painted several of its
Boxcar s with the Pan Am logo.
During the '', also featured Pan Am in a background television commercial in the home of David Bowman's widow, Betty. The ad slogan proclaimed, "At Pan Am, the sky is no longer the limit". In the recent sci-fi series ''
Battlestar Galactica '', one of the ships in the rag-tag fleet of survivors wandering the cosmos is a "Pan Galactic" or "Pan Gal" starliner. The ship bears Pan Am colors and the Pan Gal logo is nearly identical to Pan American's old logo.
The airline appeared in other movies, notably in several
James Bond films. The company's
Boeing 707 s were featured in ''
Dr. No '' and ''
From Russia With Love '', while a Pan Am 747 and the Worldport appeared in ''
Live And Let Die ''. The airline's logo was featured in ''
Licence To Kill '', where James Bond checks in for a Pan Am flight that he ultimately doesn't board.
Steve McQueen 's 1969 film ''
Bullitt '' features a fast-paced chase scene at
San Francisco International Airport . McQueen runs after the villain on the tarmac while dodging several Pan Am 707s. Pan Am also figured prominently in
Scarface (set in the city of Miami, one of Pan Am's major hubs), where the airline's logo and slogan were adopted by criminal overlord
Tony Montana , played by
Al Pacino . The airline was also featured in an opening scene of the
Robin Williams 's film ''
Hook '', in which the family is aboard a Pan Am 747-100 to
London .
More recently, the airline was featured in the movie ''
Catch Me If You Can ''. The battle between Juan Trippe and
TWA owner
Howard Hughes over Pan Am's transatlantic monopoly was featured prominently in ''
The Aviator ''. The airline's logo was also seen in the film ''
Blade Runner ''. Subsequently, Pan Am became one of the victims of the supposed
''Blade Runner'' Curse on large corporations whose logos were featured in scenes from the film.
In
Japan , Pan Am was a major sponsor of
Sumo wrestling from 1961 to 1991 (continuing after its exit from the trans-Pacific market). Far East regional manager David Jones, who awarded the
Pan American Trophy to the top wrestler at the end of each tournament, was a minor celebrity in the world of Japanese sports.
A term used in
Popular Psychology is "Pan American (or Pan Am) Smile." Named after the greeting
Flight Attendants (or at least actresses playing flight attendants on TV advertisements) supposedly gave to passengers, it consists of a perfunctory mouth movement without the activity of facial muscles around the eyes that chracterizes a genuine smile.
