What happened to bread: the story of successes and failures of one of the most famous airlines

Among the tourist transports that marked a milestone in history, you cannot stop mentioning Pan American World Airways, better known as Pan AM. It was the most important international airline in the United States until 1991 and distinguished worldwide for introducing news in the market.

It was the second largest brand of the American giant, behind Coca-Cola.His name and logo were recognized in the world.

The company's glamor reached different film productions.Even the award -winning Leonardo DiCaprio played a fraudulent pilot of the airline in the movie Atrár Me if you can Steven Spielberg.

“Pan AM meant the popularization and prestige of air service.If you traveled in New York in the first class, they took you to the center of Manhattan by helicopter.They landed in the tower of the company that could be seen from the Empire State.They always sought to innovate.They invented the tourist class.Today's great airlines learned from that, ”says Javier Lifa, a journalist specialized in aeronautics.

The airline knew how to win the admiration of travelers, entrepreneurs and experts in the field.

Some of the titles that are awarded are: First airline to complete a flight around the world, pioneer to fly internationally with load aircraft and first to sell international air travel packages with all expenses, in addition to being a precursor in introducing models ofAirplanes in business such as 377 Stratocruiser long -range Boeing and Boeing 747.

Early years

After the United States Department of State discovered that Germans were doing an airline in Colombia, three American companies wanted to anticipate and arrive throughout Latin America.

“That's when Juan Terry Trippe appears, a man who wanted to have the largest company in the world and gets everywhere.He joined the three signatures and appointed the new Pan American Airways, ”explains Pablo Luciano Potenze, author of airplanes, politics and money.

It was founded on October 27, 1927 as the first international airline in that country.He began offering an air mail service between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba.

The passenger transfer began on January 16, 1928. The chosen fate was also the Cuban capital."For the Americans it was a very interesting route because there was dry law and in Cuba they could take whiskey."

According to The Insider, the company made an advertising campaign with Bacardí in which they encouraged Americans to move away from alcohol prohibition and take rum in the paradisiacal Cuban beaches.

“Trippe was able to create PAN AM because before they gave the subsidy he went to Cuba and spoke with the dictator of the moment (Gerardo Machado) who gave him a permission that was actually exclusivity.He was the only American who could fly to the island.As a return of attention, the first plane that flew with the Pan American shield was called General Machado, ”adds Potenze.

In two years the routes extended from Miami to Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Buenos Aires among other destinations.

In some of these sites the landing tracks were not optimal, so the company used hydroAvions.Inspired by the sea, the uniform of the AM Pilots resembled that of ship captains.

“In Panama, he partnered with a very important shipping that was called Grace and created Pan American Grace Airways known as Panagra, flewing through the Pacific and Pan AM flew through the Atlantic.When he arrived in Brazil, to fly there he was asked to make a Brazilian company and thus was born Panair do Brazil. ”

The role in World War II

With the emergence of World War II, the company had more experience on international flights than the United States's own armed force.According to Panam.org when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, Pan American had services to 52 countries and had 8,750 employees.

He sent his pilots and aircraft to fight.He transported supplies for Chinese and uranium troops for the atomic bomb.He also helped with the construction of airports, instructed pilots and offered their radio services.

“Pan American is known as the right arm of the State Department.During the war, virtually no American plane could cross the Atlantic on a flight.It was an issue that they had to attend and did it for Brazil at Pan Am airports, and then follow Dakar.In Africa the company built bases for US planes to continue travel, ”says Potenze.

While the world was going through one of the darkest stages in contemporary history, Pan Am shone.

On November 22, 1935, he made the first transpacific commercial flight.Five days after the game from San Francisco and making different scales, the plane landed in Manila Bay, the Philippines.Time later the journey was made to Beijing, China.

By 1958, Pan AM offered regular flights to all continents on the planet, except Antarctica.In 1970 alone, he transported 11 million passengers to 86 countries around the world.

At that time, hydroAvions were already history and was crowned as the first airline in flying a Boeing 747 in regular service.

In all advertisements, allusion to luxury, comfort and slogan was "the most experienced airline in the world."The main thing for the crew was to get passengers to feel satisfied with the service.

The stories of those aircraft are several.On November 24, 1968, a Boeing 747 that came out from the John F. Kennedy airport in New York destination San Juan de Puerto Rico was kidnapped with 379 people on board less than two hours to take off.

The kidnapper requested that the aircraft go to Havana.The pilot paid attention and all the passengers arrived healthy and except that Caribbean island.As published by The New York Times, it was the first time that Fidel Castro who was on the track waiting for the successful outcome of this fact, he saw such a modern plane.

The relationship with Argentina

“The country came in 1929 or so.Panagra that came from Santiago, Chile and for the Atlantic who was Panair do Brazil, ”says Potenze.

“Panagra made Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza, Santiago, Chile or Córdoba Tucuman, Salta, Yacuíba, Bolivia, which were parts of routes that flew to the United States.Here they made local traffic. ”

LIFA argues that the company was a pioneer to make the United States - Buenos Aires.

“In total, the trip lasted nine days and eight nights, a marked contrast with three or four weeks per sea.President Roosevelt sent congratulations to his Argentine counterpart.‘The new services would contribute to improving cordial relations between the countries of the Americas’, "LIFA wrote in the Book AM Personal Tribute to a Global Aviation Pioneer.

According to Potenze, Argentina had no clear legislation on aviation and did his best so that the company enters the country until the arrival of Juan Domingo Perón to power.

“He didn't want Panagra and Pan American to get into domestic transport.He wanted Argentine companies. ”

For that, the then president founded 4 mixed economy companies and removed the internal routes Pan AM. The company became an international flight airline to the United States via Chile, Peru, Panama.It also had another journey that came out of the Atlantic.

By 1950 the relations between the Argentine government and Pan Am improved.

On July 3 of that year, the arrival in Ezeiza of the Boeing Stratocruiser aircraft, one of the largest commercial aircraft in the world at that time with which the rapid service, passengers and cargo between New York and Buenos Aires,With two trips per week.

The day before the Diario Democracy published: "Mrs. Eva Perón will proceed to baptize the" Fienship "clipper, starring in his fuselage a bottle of Argentine champagne.The act will begin with the execution of the Argentine and North American national hymns by the Federal Police Band and then the significance of the act, Mr. Trippe. ”

Lifa remembers that when he was a boy he lived in an industrial neighborhood and spent hours looking out the window seeing people pass.There was one thing that caught his attention: workers' bags.

"There were two very popular, the airlines and that of Pan Am. That a worker here walked with a bread bag having so many possible logos, means that the people who could not travel also had their eyes on that brand.It was incredibly famous. "

The beginning of the end

In October 1973, the price of oil rose 300%.This affected Pan AM than other airlines for its long -distance itineraries, added to the fact that the demand for these routes began to go down.

The company had long wanted to operate within the country, but rival firms managed to influence Congress and convince its members that if that happened it would be monopoly.

In 1978, when the airline deregulation law was approved, which meant that the Government could no longer control the routes, PAN AM proposed a merger with National Airlines.That implied an investment of 437 million dollars.

“They never let in internal flights and that has enough to do with the fall.The United States air system is established by mail, and says that international airlines cannot operate domestic routes and vice versa, there were exceptions.That is why the flights that the airline did around the world left New York and arrived in San Francisco, or vice versa.They couldn't do that section, ”says Potenze.

A year after acquiring National Airlines, he lost 18.9 million, even after selling his emblematic central office in Manhattan for 400 million dollars.

“Pan AM did not know how to enter the North American domestic market, it did not understand the game of deregulation.He began to borrow and decapitalize, sold and rented European airplanes. ”

In 1985, with the intention of minimizing the crisis, he sold the Pacific routes to United Airlines.

On September 5, 1986, a tragedy shook the company.Palestinian militants of the Abu Nidal organization took the plane from Bombay, India, bound for New York, when it stopped in Karachi, Pakistan.

Four armed men, disguised as airport security agents, fired in the air.The tragedy ended with 22 people dead and around 50 wounds.

Two year later another accident went around the world.An aircraft that came out from London to New York destined a terrorist attack.It exploded in the air on Lockerbie, Scotland.243 passengers, 16 crew members and 11 residents of the city died.

“The company began to walk badly with deregulation.She was never comfortable because she couldn't compete that way.He never had a good cabotage in the United States and always lived from international.And that was conditioned by the foreign policy of the United States.Other countries saw her as the Pentagon line, especially in the Middle East.The final lunge was the accident.The crisis badly handled, ”says Lifa.

In 1991, this specialized journalist was invited to a press conference in which he was scheduled that Dwight Hendrikson, general sales manager for Latin America and the Caribbean announced the launch of the AM-Delta PAN Plan, which was aimed at avoiding the collapseof the line.

The day before the event, LIFA joined friends.“When I returned home that night, I found a note written by my mother at the kitchen table.'There is no need to get up early.Canceled invitation.Gowland called: Pan Am closed. 'My ears were filled with a thunderous roar.It didn't make sense or could not allow it to be true.For the love of God, how could that happen?

In December 1991, he declared bankruptcy.Delta bought most of Pan AM. He acquired his European routes, 45 Jets, his flagship terminal at the JFK International Airport, among other things.

Failed attempts

In 1996 investors tried to relive the brand.Based in Miami, the inaugural flights were from New York to that city in the state of Florida.High routes to Los Angeles and San Juan de Puerto Rico.He launched tickets with great discounts, but American Airlines and United Airlines managed to match prices.

His fleet was old, so when a plane had a technical damage it was hard to find a replacement and this was reflected in the delay of the itineraries.The reputation went to Pique.

For economic reasons, in 1997, Pan AM and Carnival Air Lines decided to merge.The latter would finance the new company that would keep the name of PAN AM. In 1998 it went bankrupt.

“I never believed much to revive it.It seems valid as a nostalgia coup.The people who worked at Pan AM have a great memory because they really lived it as a fantastic era, ”says Lifa.

During the legal process it was agreed that Guilford Transportation would acquire the name and assets of PAN AM. It was a new opportunity for the brand that was relaunched as a low -cost airline.

Despite the different strategies to make it viable, the increase in fuel prices was invoiced and the airline stopped operating at the end of February 2008.

Today there is only the memory of what was the most important airline in the United States.His innovations and ways of operating marked the way for current international trips.From booking a seat, choosing a class or going around the world, everything was devised by Pan American World Airways.