jspira

Please contribute your thoughts and reminiscences of Pan Am, The World's Most Experienced Airline. Here are mine, excerpted from a story I wrote on this theme. I still have lots of the Pan Am swag I got while flying as a kid and teenager ranging from amenity kits to pins to bags to wings.

"I grew up flying Pan Am and was Platinum by the time I was 18, thanks to having spent summers in Austria when younger and then attending university in Munich. The promotional card I swiped from the Pan Am office in Vienna promoting the Munich flights – “Tägich Nonstop München-New York“ – adorns my desk to this date along with a model of a Pan Am Boeing 747-200. Nearby is the airline’s final published schedule from October 27, 1991, a fraction of the size of a PAA schedule even a year earlier."



I also went with my parents to London on PAA perhaps once a year and was a big fan of the upper deck, which was Clipper Class territory, while my parents preferred the comfier 747 nose zone, aka first class.

Above text and images excerpted from
25 Years Ago: Pan Am, A Cultural Icon, Stops Flying



This link is to an online source to which I contribute and/or have a financial interest.

jrl767

I have a grand total of 11 PA flights, most on 747-100s SEA<-->SFO/LAX between 1978 and 1987 ... there was also a 1978 LAX-JFK trip on a 747SP, and I swift-talked my way into the L-1011-500 jump seat on MEX-IAH in Dec 1980

did PA ever actually operate the 747-200 with 10 windows on the upper deck?

jspira

Yes - I believe 7 or 8 of them were in the fleet. Plus some 747SPs as well.

(Did the model on my desk prompt the question? Just curious)

jrl767

I don't recall ever seeing any 10-upper-deck-window 747s (except for the SPs) in PA colors, but that doesn't mean there weren't any ... your model also reflects a later engine type, as the original JT9D-3As had a very short fan cowl (see this pic)

YVR Cockroach

Only airline I've flown on a 747SP (HKG-SIN-HKG mid '70s), last 747-100 flight I took (SFO-SEA in late 1989, flight went on to LON), and I did fly the PA shuttle once and hence my only flight out of the Marine Air Terminal at LGA. I also want to say 707s in the early '70s but don't remember (JFK-LHR), if not HNL-SFO-JFK too).

YVR Cockroach

Never flew any PA 742s myself. PA went belly up when I was down in EZE in late '91. Flew down from JFK (and back up) on AR.

obscure2k

Flew Pan Am to Europe many times in the '70's from LAX. In 1978 we flew FC in the 747 SP from SFO-HKG. I think, at that time, it was the longest non-stop in any fleet, about 15 hours. FC was in the upper deck and each seat had so much leg room that the FA rolled the cart in front of our seats to serve us. It was such elegant service. I liked that little SP. Of all of the flights I have taken over the years, that particular flight is memorable. Perhaps, because it was the longest flight we had ever taken.

NYTA

First and only time I flew PA was when I was 11 years old - flew them to London with my mother. I assume from LAX non-stop but may have stopped somewhere (it was a long time ago!). We had the whole set of seats in between the two aisles to ourselves and I remember trying to sleep on the floor while my mom slept on the seats.

hfly

Pan Am was my main carrier for many years. Amazing though as the years go by how the amount of flights I have had on other carriers since has long eclipsed the amount I flew Pan Am, yet many Pan Am flights are more strongly in my mind (as opposed to my TWA flights which were almost all forgettable!)

bhomburg

My memories are not as fond as most here. Blissfully unaware of their history and brand cachet, I only ever flew them on their intra-Germany service to Berlin in the mid- to late '80s. Decrepit 727s which were run down, loud and dirty plus zero service left a very unimpressive picture.

hfly

But even that is a relic, as the reason that you flew that., and the reason they could get away with those services was because LH was unable to fly to Berlin......

84fiero

I only flew Pan Am on one trip - my first time overseas when I was 16 years old - in the spring of 1990 for a high school trip to Spain and France, CLE-JFK-MAD/CDG-JFK-CLE (in Y of course). I had flown before domestically but never anything bigger than a single-aisle plane so the size alone of the 747 blew me away. While I was familiar with the Pan Am name, I didn't really know the history at the time. I did save the ticket and a few odds and ends from on board, which I think are still in a box - will post pics if I can dig them out later.

Looking back later I realize the experience paled in comparison to the airline's glory days. At the time I felt like I was on cloud 9 and it was all so impressive. In fairness, I was so excited to be on the trip in general that they probably could have sat me on a cardboard box and fed me plain rice, and I would've been equally thrilled!

I remember having our JFK-MAD flight delayed some 13 hours due to a bad engine and getting sent to some crummy motel overnight. I don't recall a whole lot of details about the flights - the food was unremarkable - dry chicken of some sort with rice; I remember the overhead projector movie that I couldn't really see from my seat, with those old school tube earphones. A couple of our teachers/chaperones had flown Pan Am "back in the day" and I vaguely recall them lamenting the 1990 experience in comparison.

My mother, who hates flying to begin with, was quite upset that we were flying on Pan Am, with the Lockerbie bombing not that far in the past.

Gardyloo

Five counting one from my late sweetie...

One - I was at Idlewild airport (now JFK) as a kid waiting to take off for LAX on a United DC-7 when the pilot came on the speaker and said everybody should look out at the runway where a brand new Pan Am 707 is about to land from one of its first transatlantic flights. While we were watching, all the fire trucks blasted out onto the runway and started laying down foam; some early 707s had a problem with the hydraulics freezing up making landing gear deployment tricky.

We took off before the PA plane landed; they had told PA to circle to see if the problem would be solved by staying in warmer air, and apparently it did.

Two (my wife's) - Flying HKG-SFO in the early 70s, one of the PA FAs had apparently dropped acid and started freaking out; she was walking down the aisle crab-style using the armrests on the aisle seats, singing, before being restrained by the rest of the crew.

Three, I stepped in dog poop on a West Berlin street and didn't know it (had a cold and couldn't smell anything) until a PA FA on the Berlin - Frankfurt shuttle told me. I tried to deal with it in the 727's head, but was only partly successful. Fortunately nobody was sitting next to me; I handled it at FRA waiting for my flight to Anchorage.

Four, I was on a night PA flight from SEA to Fairbanks, chatting with the PA pilot who was sitting behind me (he was deadheading; at the time PA flew JFK-xFAI-TYO.) We were both in window seats, looking at the moonlit mountains (and brilliant aurora) over the Gulf of Alaska, when suddenly our plane (a 707) did a very brisk left turn and climb - quite radical - and the landing lights came on. A split second later another set of landing lights came on, from a plane around 1000 feet below us and maybe half a mile away, going the opposite way; our closing speed was well in excess of 1000 mph.

I said something like, "Wow, that was close," to the pilot behind me.

"My closest ever," was his reply. We didn't talk much after that.

Five, I was on a SEA-LHR PA flight, me on the aisle, my wife on the window, with a horrible drunk person (an oily on his way back to Dhahran) between us. He tried to get way too friendly with my wife (hands) and wanted to pick a fight with me, then passed out. The plane was completely full, not a spare seat to take him, so one of the cockpit crew came back and frog-marched him to the galley to fill him with coffee, then found a volunteer who agreed to move seats and put the guy next to a chap that looked like he, too, knew his way around a drilling site. Problem solved.

lhrsfo

I used to fly PA every summer between London and San Francisco as a child. Initially it was on 707s, then 747s. At first, there were open hat racks and the planes had to stop at Winnipeg westbound for more fuel, but I recall once when, I suppose, the winds were different, and we put down in SEA instead. At some stage (I'm guessing in the mid-60s) they added tv monitors (black and white) to the hat racks to provide rudimentary IFE and also, at some stage, the 707s were replaced with longer range models which didn't have to stop.

I do remember being very impressed with the food (this was always economy), with such delicacies (for the era) as smoked salmon and fillet steak in economy. For some reason, on one occasion, my parents took BOAC (as BA was in those days) instead and I didn't like that at all.

PA used to have its own terminal in Victoria where you would check in and take a PA bus to LHR. If you had forgotten to get the innoculations needed for the USA, you could go upstairs where they did it on the spot.

Apart from the excitement of a new plane, my memory of PA takes a turn for the worse when the 747 came along. The service declined as the crowds grew, they closed the Victoria terminal and, although the plane and IFE were more sophisticated, it wasn't nearly so much of an adventure (but then I was older and, perhaps, more jaded). The food took a real turn for the worse and I still have nightmares about one meal which resembled dog food - I think this would have been in the 70s. After that, I rarely flew them as it had become the incredible shrinking airline, BA had got its act together and VS was starting to operate. With that competition, PA simply didn't stand a chance.

obscure2k

I recall a few trips from LAX-JFK on the 747. FC passengers were given the option of a helicopter transfer in to mid town Manhattan. Fun times.