Pan Am: rise and fall of an aviation legend

A blue globe on the tail, the lettering in clean letters and the word Clipper before every aircraft name: hardly any airline stands so much for the golden age of aviation as Pan American World Airways. The history of Pan Am stretches from small mail flights across the Straits of Florida to the first order for the jumbo jet – and ends in 1991 with a bankruptcy that is still regarded as a cautionary tale. This post takes you through the most important chapters, explains why Pan Am also played a special role for Berlin and shows where you can still encounter the legend as a spotter today.

Pan Am in brief

For decades, Pan Am was the most important international airline of the US. Founded in 1927, it opened the first routes across the Pacific and Atlantic with flying boats, was launch customer of the Boeing 707 and the Boeing 747 and, at its best, flew to more than 80 countries. It never had a strong domestic network, though. After the deregulation of the US market, several crises and the Lockerbie bombing, Pan Am sold off its assets piece by piece and ceased operations on December 4, 1991. You’ll find a dedicated profile of the airline at Pan American World Airways.

The beginnings: airmail to Havana

On March 14, 1927, Pan American Airways came into being at first as a shell company, founded by several officers of the US Army Air Corps. A young entrepreneur from New York became decisive: Juan Trippe. With his backers he secured the mail contracts and took control, and in 1928 the companies involved were merged. Trippe stayed at the helm until 1968 and shaped the airline like hardly any other manager shaped his company.

The start was modest. On October 19, 1927, a chartered Fairchild FC-2 seaplane carried the first contract mail from Key West to Havana – the day is regarded as the beginning of flight operations. Passengers followed from January 1928 on the same route with a Fokker F.VII. In the following years, Pan Am built a network to Central and South America, supported by US government mail contracts and by a policy that effectively saw Pan Am as the international representative of the US.

The era of the Clippers

Because there were hardly any airports in Latin America and over the oceans, Pan Am relied on flying boats. The airline called its aircraft Clippers, after the fast sailing ships of the 19th century – a name addition that Pan Am aircraft carried to the very end.

The breakthrough on the Pacific came with the Martin M-130 China Clipper. On November 22, 1935, it took off from Alameda near San Francisco on the first transpacific airmail flight and reached Manila on November 29, with stops on islands such as Hawaii, Midway, Wake and Guam. Passengers flew this route from October 1936. On the Atlantic, the Boeing 314 Clipper followed, then one of the largest airliners in the world. From June 28, 1939, Pan Am used it to offer scheduled passenger service via the southern route to France, and in July the northern route to Britain was added. A few weeks later World War II began, and the Clippers flew mainly for the military from then on.

After the war: around the world

After 1945, Pan Am switched definitively from flying boats to landplanes. With types such as the Lockheed Constellation, the Douglas DC-4 and later the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, the airline expanded its long-haul network. In June 1947, Pan Am started the first scheduled round-the-world service – an offering that was part of its brand core for decades and ended only in October 1982.

On the side, a conglomerate grew. In 1946 Pan Am founded the Inter-Continental hotel chain to offer its passengers suitable accommodation at faraway destinations. The airline was thus early on more than a flight operation: it sold a way of life in which the travel itself was already part of the experience.

1958: Pan Am opens the jet age

In October 1955, Pan Am ordered jet aircraft from Boeing and Douglas, forcing its US competitors to respond. On October 26, 1958, the Boeing 707-120 with the registration N711PA and the name Clipper America flew from New York-Idlewild via Gander to Paris-Le Bourget – the first scheduled flight of a US airline with a jet airliner. There were 111 passengers on board. Atlantic flight times shrank drastically, and the long-range version 707-320 Intercontinental made nonstop connections routine.

In the same year Pan Am introduced the globe logo, still known in the spotter scene as the “Blue Ball.” Two structures made the brand impossible to overlook:

• The Worldport in New York: On May 24, 1960, Pan Am opened its own terminal at what is now JFK Airport. Its far-cantilevered oval roof, popularly called the “flying saucer,” let aircraft park with their noses beneath it. In 1971 it was extended for the 747 and from then on was called the Worldport.
• The Pan Am Building: The skyscraper above Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan carried the airline’s lettering visibly across the city. The computer-assisted reservation system PANAMAC also ran there from 1964.

A curiosity shows how self-assured Pan Am was at the time: from 1964 the airline took reservations for future moon flights. Around 93,000 people signed up for the so-called First Moon Flights Club.

The jumbo: Pan Am as godfather of the 747

Juan Trippe wanted an aircraft that carries significantly more passengers than the 707. In April 1966, Pan Am ordered 25 Boeing 747s for $525 million – without this first order the program would hardly have started. On January 21, 1970, the first scheduled flight followed from New York JFK to London Heathrow. Because of technical problems it took off only after a delay of several hours and with a replacement aircraft: N736PA, later known as Clipper Victor.

The years around 1970 marked the peak. According to the company’s history, Pan Am carried around eleven million passengers to 86 countries in 1970. With the shortened Boeing 747SP, Pan Am set a record in 1976: on a special flight, the Clipper Liberty Bell circled the Earth in 46 hours and 50 seconds.

Pan Am and Berlin

For German aviation fans, Pan Am has special significance. After World War II, only airlines of the three Western Allies were allowed to fly to West Berlin – German companies such as Lufthansa were excluded. Pan Am therefore operated services between Berlin and West German cities from 1950 to 1990, the so-called Internal German Service.

At first Pan Am operated from Tempelhof Airport, whose history you can read in the post Tempelhof Airport. On September 1, 1975, Pan Am moved to Berlin Tegel together with British Airways. From the mid-1960s the Boeing 727 shaped the picture, later mainly the 727-200. In the mid-1980s, widebody Airbus jets were added, first the A300, later the A310. In the late 1980s, Pan Am Express complemented the offering with turboprops.

With reunification, the special status ended. Lufthansa took over Pan Am’s Berlin traffic rights effective October 28, 1990, for 150 million US dollars. The last direct Pan Am flight from Berlin to New York departed on November 2, 1991. What happened at Tegel afterward is covered in the history of Tegel Airport.

Period	Event
1950	Start of the Internal German Service from Berlin
September 1, 1975	Move from Tempelhof to Tegel
Mid-1980s	first Airbus widebody jets in domestic German service
October 28, 1990	Lufthansa takes over the Berlin traffic rights
November 2, 1991	last direct Pan Am flight Berlin–New York

The crisis: deregulation, National and the fire sale

Pan Am’s strength was also its weakness. For decades the US government had largely denied it domestic routes. When the US market was deregulated in 1978, domestic airlines suddenly could fly abroad – but Pan Am had no network to bring passengers to its long-haul flights. Oil price shocks and overcapacity from the many widebody jets made matters worse.

The response was the takeover of National Airlines, completed on January 7, 1980, for $437 million. Integration was difficult, and the hoped-for turnaround failed to come. In the following years, Pan Am increasingly financed itself through sales:

• November 1980: The Pan Am Building goes to the insurer Metropolitan Life for $400 million.
• September 1981: The Inter-Continental hotel chain is sold.
• April 1985: The entire Pacific division, including the Tokyo-Narita hub, goes to United Airlines for $750 million.

At the same time, Pan Am tried to modernize its fleet. In 1984 it ordered Airbus aircraft, and from 1986 A310s also flew across the Atlantic, the first of these routes leading from New York to Hamburg. In October 1986, the Pan Am Shuttle started between the big cities on the US East Coast, built on the shuttle business bought from New York Air.

Tenerife and Lockerbie: two catastrophes

Two events overshadow the airline’s history. On March 27, 1977, a KLM 747 and the Pan Am 747 N736PA, Clipper Victor, collided in fog at Los Rodeos Airport on Tenerife. 583 people died – still the deadliest accident in civil aviation. Of all aircraft, this very one had flown the first scheduled jumbo flight in 1970. What lessons radio communication and crew training drew from it is explained in the post on the Tenerife disaster of 1977.

On December 21, 1988, a bomb exploded aboard Pan Am Flight 103, a Boeing 747-100 with the registration N739PA and the name Clipper Maid of the Seas, over Lockerbie in Scotland. 270 people died, including eleven on the ground. The bombing hit Pan Am hard not only humanly and morally but also economically: many travelers avoided the airline in the following months.

1991: the end

When Iraq occupied Kuwait in August 1990, fuel prices rose and demand on the North Atlantic collapsed. Pan Am had already sold most of its Heathrow routes along with two 747s to United and announced the cutting of thousands of jobs. On January 8, 1991, the airline filed for creditor protection under Chapter 11.

Delta Air Lines took over the remaining valuable parts during the year: the shuttle, dozens of jets, the transatlantic hub at Frankfurt Airport and the Worldport in New York, which Delta then used as Terminal 3. A scaled-down Pan Am based in Miami was planned as a continuation with Delta’s support – but Delta withdrew its commitment. On December 4, 1991, Pan Am ceased operations. The last scheduled flight was flown by Pan Am 436, a Boeing 727-200 with the registration N368PA and the name Clipper Goodwill, from Bridgetown, Barbados, to Miami Airport. Around 7,500 employees lost their jobs.

A similar fate befell the longtime rival TWA ten years later. How airline bankruptcies unfolded in Europe is shown in the overview of the major airline insolvencies.

What remains of Pan Am

The name didn’t disappear. From 1996 to 1998, a low-cost airline flew under the brand, and from 1998 to 2004 an unrelated regional airline. In 1998 Guilford Transportation took over the rights to the name and logo and later renamed itself Pan Am Systems; the freight railroad Pan Am Railways became best known. In 2011 the US TV series “Pan Am” revived the glamour of the 1960s but was canceled after one season.

For spotters, Pan Am today is above all a search for traces. The Worldport in New York was demolished in 2013 and 2014, but at JFK Airport the neighboring TWA Hotel recalls the same era of jet-age architecture. In terms of aircraft history you encounter Pan Am with almost every classic: with the Boeing 747-100, the 707 or the 727. And liveries with Pan Am echoes keep turning up – more in the posts on legendary airline liveries and retro liveries.

Conclusion

Pan Am was more than an airline: it opened the oceans with flying boats, brought the 707 and 747 into scheduled service and made flying the symbol of an entire era. For Berlin it was a link to the outside world for over four decades. But the focus on foreign markets, the missing domestic feeder and a series of crises bled the company dry until only the fire sale remained in 1991. What remains is a logo that everyone knows and aircraft types that would hardly have come about without Pan Am.