Some of us can remember a time when any number of US airlines graced the skies, both near and far. Most dated back to the early days of commercial aviation and every single one of them had a loyal fan base. Several were permanently grounded as a result of severe financial difficulties that no amount of bankruptcy restructuring could fix. Others were absorbed in complicated mergers that left only one carrier as the surviving airline. Whatever the reason, all of them are missed. That’s why I thought it’d be fun to take a look back at these bygone airlines; how they started, how they grew and what contributions they made to the world of aviation. This is the fifth installment in a multi-part series. If you’re lucky enough to remember flying just one of these carriers, I hope you enjoy your trip down memory lane. If not, I'm betting you'll appreciate learning more about what made each airline special and the role they played in the evolution of the industry. Next up - Pan American World Airways.
In 1927, a Yale-educated pilot and entrepreneur named Juan Terry Trippe began US scheduled mail service with a single-engine Fairchild FC-2 floatplane flying across the ninety miles of water separating Key West and Havana, Cuba. Within four decades, he'd built the greatest airline in the world. The life of that company encompasses not just the story of commercial aviation, but the saga of America’s rise to world dominance. In its prime, Pan American World Airways wasn’t merely a successful airline, it was the aviation company that helped create what Time Magazine publisher Henry Luce called “The American Century." Combining audacity, vision and service, Pan Am embodied the nation’s spirit of enterprise and ingenuity and exported it on wings. Juan Trippe named Pan American’s aircraft “Clippers,” harking back to the great sailing ships of the early Nineteenth Century. Employing new technology and bold management, the new merchant marine of the air eventually linked cultures, economies, and people on six continents. It became more than just the standard-bearer of American business and culture, it was the international airline that others longed to emulate. “Trippe, more that all other entrepreneurs of the air,” wrote veteran Pan Am pilot Horace Brock, “brought the peoples of the world closer together.”
Let’s go back to 1927 again. In that same year, Charles Lindbergh made his historic 3,350 mile solo trip across the Atlantic from New York to Paris and became the hero of the age. Trippe soon offered the aviator a retainer of $10,000 a year (about $173,000 in today’s dollars) and an option to purchase one-tenth of Pan American Airways’ shares at half their value. Lindbergh would ostensibly serve as “technical advisor,” but Trippe understood that his real value would be in terms of public relations. The arrangement suited Lindbergh as it gave him an opportunity to apply his intellect to the practical matters of aviation while allowing him the freedom to explore the globe. He became involved with all levels of Pan Am, from construction of aircraft to long-range strategic route planning. Lindbergh would maintain his relationship with the airline for more than four decades.
By the close of the 1920s, Pan Am linked the US with the Caribbean. Although aerodynamically less efficient than streamlined land planes, their seaplanes provided service to any city with a sheltered harbor, which made them the ideal international airliner at a time when few cities had runways capable of handling large land aircraft. Pan Am started its South American routes in 1929 with Consolidated Commodore and Sikorsky S-38 flying boats. The S-40, larger than the eight-passenger S-38, began flying for Pan Am in 1931. Carrying the nicknames American Clipper, Southern Clipper, and Caribbean Clipper, they were the first in a series of 28 airliners that came to symbolize the carrier which operated Clipper services to Latin America from the International Pan American Airport at Dinner Key in Miami, Florida.
Trippe then decided to start a service from San Francisco to Honolulu and on to Hong Kong and Auckland following established steamship routes. After negotiating traffic rights in 1934 to land at Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Wake Island, Guam, and Subic Bay in Manila, the airline shipped construction crews westward, along with aeronautical equipment valued at $500,000 (nearly $11 million today) for the purpose of provisioning each island that the Clippers would stop at on their 4-to-5 day journeys. The first passenger flight across the Pacific left Alameda, CA on October 21,1936 amid great fanfare. Pan Am later used Boeing B314 flying boats for the Pacific route and six of these large, long-range Clippers were later delivered to the company in early 1939. The Boeing 314 also enabled the start of scheduled passenger flights from New York to both France and Britain. But, the Second World War interrupted everything.
During the war, most Clippers were pressed into military service. In January 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first sitting US President to travel by air. He flew aboard Pan Am's Dixie Clipper to a secret World War II strategy meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Casablanca, North Africa. With German U-boats taking a heavy toll on American marine traffic in the Atlantic, Roosevelt’s advisors reluctantly agreed to send him via airplane. The president, at a frail 60 years old, gamely made the arduous 17,000-mile round trip. The Dixie Clipper stopped in Trinidad; Belem, Brazil; and Bathurst, Gambia, where the president changed aircraft. Then, for his own protection while flying over an active war zone, he traveled in a Douglas C-54 Army transport airplane. The president’s flight time had lasted over 50 hours covering some 7,000 miles. Roosevelt took the same route home after the conference, though at a much slower pace.
Although Pan Am continued to use its political influence to lobby for protection of its position as America's primary international airline, after the war it encountered increasing competition. This came first from American Export Airlines across the Atlantic to Europe, and subsequently from others, including TWA to Europe, Braniff to South America, United to Hawaii and Northwest Orient to East Asia. This changed situation resulted from the new post-war approach the US Civil Aeronautics Board took toward the promotion of competition between major US carriers on key domestic and international scheduled routes compared with pre-war American aviation policy. Nevertheless, Pan Am continued to move forward. In June 1947 the carrier started the first scheduled round-the-world airline flight. In January 1950 Pan American Airways Corporation officially became Pan American World Airways and they were the launch customer for the Boeing B707 towards the close of the decade. On October 26, 1958 the carrier operated the first commercial flight of an American jet airliner. Pan Am's Boeing 707-121, named Clipper America, departed New York Idlewild on an 8 hour and 41 minute flight to Paris Le Bourget with a fuel stop at Gander, Newfoundland. The “Jet Age” had officially begun.
And it went on to even greater heights. One afternoon in 1965, Juan Trippe and Boeing’s Bill Allen were cruising Puget Sound aboard John Wayne’s Wild Goose. What transpired between these two men that day has become part of aviation folklore. With the head of Boeing as his captive audience, Trippe laid out his vision for an airliner that would multiply the astounding success of Boeing’s 707 by adding capacity for more than twice as many passengers. Allen was more than interested as he was already sitting on substantive plans for Boeing’s proposal to the US Air Force for the CX-Heavy Lift System (later won by Lockheed). The meeting is supposed to have concluded with Allen’s famous line ‘If you’ll buy it, I’ll build it.’ To which Trippe is said to have replied ‘If you build it, I’ll buy it’. And the seed that became the “jumbo jet” was planted. Pan Am became the launch customer for the Boeing 747, placing a then unheard of $600 million order for 25 of the jets in April 1966. Less than four years later, First Lady Pat Nixon christened Pan Am Clipper Young America at Washington’s Dulles Airport in the presence of Pan Am’s new chairman Najeeb Halaby (Trippe had retired in 1968). For the very first time, it became affordable for people to travel internationally and the airline saw great success.
In fact, Pan Am carried 11 million passengers over 20 billion miles in 1970, the same year it changed air travel with the introduction of that first wide-bodied 747 airliner. In 1968, the year Trippe stepped down as CEO, the airline had grown to 44,000 employees and was owned by 114,000 stockholders. Pan Am’s Park Avenue headquarters in New York, built in 1963, was the largest commercial office building ever constructed at the time. From the top of this building helicopters flew jet-setting passengers out to the Pan Am Terminal at Kennedy International Airport in only sixteen minutes! And, from 1946 to 1981, Pan Am developed over 80 luxury hotels throughout its global destinations, creating the InterContinental Hotels Corporation. The company was indeed “flying high.” But, eventually it all came crashing down.
A combination of mismanagement, government indifference and flawed regulatory policies all contributed to the airline's decline. It began with the recession of 1969-70 which took its toll on the traveling public and continued with the skyrocketing fuel prices brought on by the Arab oil embargo in 1973. Pan Am began losing money - lots of it. Management concluded that the only way to save the airline was to shrink it. Headcount went down to 27,000 and by 1980, the company was losing a million dollars a day. First to go was the magnificent Pan Am Building and then the Intercontinental Hotels Corporation. In 1985 the profitable Pacific routes were sold to United Airlines and with it, the company's fabled heritage as the pioneer of the Pacific. The bombing of Pan Am Flight # 103, the 747 Clipper Maid of the Seas, over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 23, 1988 signaled the beginning of the final chapter. Less than three years later a New York bankruptcy court sold the company's remaining assets to Delta Air Lines. Finally, on December 4, 1991, neither Delta nor the airline's creditors would pump any more money into the failing enterprise and that’s when Pan American World Airways ceased to exist.
Until next time...safe travels.
A very sad ending to such a pioneering business. Very informative, and chastening! ...