Originally Posted by
buckwirth
Can you say that Pan Am was not a victim of deregulation?
From the Pan Am Wiki:
"Since the 1930s, Juan Trippe coveted domestic routes for Pan Am, and throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s the airline attempted to merge with American Airlines, Eastern Airlines, and Trans World Airlines.[citation needed]The airline was repeatedly denied permission from the Civil Aeronautics Board to operate within the United States, and Pan Am remained as an American carrier operating international routes only. When the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 became law, it contained two clauses. "Clause A" allowed domestic carriers to begin operating on international routes while "Clause B" allowed Pan Am to operate domestically.[citation needed] Only "Clause A" was put into effect as the other airlines convinced Congress that Pan Am would monopolize all U.S. air routes, though the last time Pan Am was permitted to merge with another airline was in 1950 when Pan Am was permitted to purchase American Overseas Airlines from American Airlines.[citation needed] As a result, U.S. domestic airlines began competing with Pan Am internationally."
This is not completely true. Pan Am was allowed to start domestic flights after the Airline Deregulation Act was passed in 1978. Pan Am's domestic network was really created by acquiring National Airlines in 1980. But Pan Am overpaid for National because they were in a bidding war with Frank Lorenzo for the airline.
Pan Am was a victim of airline deregulation, because it could never create a strong enough domestic network to feed its international flights, which were starting to struggle under increased competition.