ren0312

Which was the better airline during the pre-deregulation era heyday? And how did the 2 compare to its European competitors such as Lufthansa, BOAC/BA, and Swissair, or Asian airlines such as Iran Air, Air India, SIA, Cathay Pacific, or Japan Airlines.

jspira

Pan Am was a true innovator and set the standards that others followed. It's as simple as that.

Tanic

PA was the USA's official flag carrier for years, but was gone long before TW's demise. Both quality companies (even through the dark Icahn years). Tossup.

satman40

I was on the last TWA Flight to ANK, I still have the coffee cup, The FA gave me a new one in the box,

If you wanted to lie flat, you needed to find 4 empty seats in the back, in a row,

Today AA treats us just as well.

ren0312

I was talking about them in the 70s vs. their other competitors during that time.

brplane

pan am the best and first in lots of different ways

jspira

Actually, no. It wasn't. The United States never had a flag carrier although Pan Am was the closest thing to a flag carrier the country has had.

acvitale

pan am service was superior to TWA and frankly the European carriers of the day. but that was in the 70s

jimquan

Pan Am was ground breaking in many ways. They introduced Clipper travel, the Boeing 707 and 747. Unfortunately it was the latter that contributed to their demise due to over capacity.

While I don't remember particulars of their service having the newest and best aircraft certainly contributed.

"SkyGods" by Robert Gandt is an excellent history of Pan Am.

Jim

BearX220

Pan Am was not an officially designated flag carrier like BOAC, etc. were for other countries. Pan Am was indisputably a "chosen instrument" for US officialdom, with deep State Department, CIA / intelligence, and media connections, in a way TWA was not. TWA was associated with Hollywood and celebrity owing to its Howard Hughes link. Pan Am was associated with Washington.

My father was a globetrotting LIFE magazine senior editor in the 1950s and 1960s. In his papers I found a memo to the LIFE London bureau asking for his first-class ticket to New York on TWA to be changed to Pan Am. “Every time I have been caught in some oddball part of the world some Pan Am chap has turned up and volunteered to be my travel agent and I am beginning to appreciate this.” Heaven only knows how much diplomatic and logistic work Juan Trippe's Pan Am did as favors for Washington and press interests.

But in that era PA and TW provided excellent, solicitous, trend-setting service while overseas competitors fell way short. (BOAC and Air France, for two, were unreliable, hidebound nightmares by comparison.) A Pan Am office overseas was nearly as good as a US embassy when it came to looking after traveling Americans.

The heyday began to unravel, ironically, with the arrival of the 747 Pan Am helped to midwife. Suddenly too much capacity, too much debt, then came deregulation, and PA and TW degenerated from that point (late 1970s) and never reattained former glory.

jspira

and continued with the poor timing of the National acquisition immediately prior to deregulation, which made the acquisition unnecessary and a burden due to difficulties in integrating the two airlines.

BearX220

Perfectly true. And Pan Am's coffin was sealed by the rise of the 767 and ETOPS twins which enabled "long, thin" TATL routes to/from secondary markets. The whole Pan Am domestic network in the '80s was mostly for getting people all across America to JFK to connect with overseas 747s at the WorldPort. Suddenly there was no point to any of it; you could fly nonstop from where you started.

Maxwell Smart

Second that.

I had never heard of it, but saw a copy at the Pan Am store in Miami and bought it. Great read.

aristotled

Love this thread and love the old Pan Am model! I enjoy watching the youtube vids of Pan Am in the day! Wish I was flying back then! Must have been amazing!

jspira

This thread reminded me to put some of my extra Pan Am items (I have boxes full) on eBay. It's amazing to see how many people have such fond recollections of PAA and the comments I'm getting from people on eBay is making the effort worthwhile (I won't get rich selling the stuff, but I will get more closet space).