HNLbasedFlyer

A 9 hour 45 minute flight SFO-HNL - no thank you. And of course the video has a smoker. UA flew those planes to Hawaii about 4 years before they threw in the towel as the route was not profitable on that particular airplane.....

Bear96

PA operated domestic routes by the 1980s. It even opreated the BOS/LGA/DCA shuttle for awhile. Can't get much more domestic than that.

jsloan

I corrected myself in a later post. UA was repeatedly denied international routes due to the strength of its domestic network, but, yes, TW and NW were both allowed limited international service.

PA had long wanted domestic routes, but was repeatedly refused due to its strength internationally. They added them as soon as deregulation took effect, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. In the regulated era, they were international-only.

seat38a

Instead of National, I wonder if merging with United would have helped PanAm or if it would have still sank and brought down United with it.

PaulMCO

My days with United go back to the early 1970's. Again UA was purely domestic and the Hawaii airline, despite the fact that Pan Am was the original Hawaii Airline. Flew from Newport News, VA (worked for Air Force), through ORD to LAX, PHX, Vegas, SFO etc...
No international as Pan Am was the airline. International routes were controlled/gifted to PA and TWA. When UA wanted to go international there was only undeserved city pair available ie. SEA-HKG

Several people mentioned CAAC. My first flights to China were in 1980. It was on Northwest from SEA to NRT to PEK. NW was the first American airline to fly to China with PA being the second a day later. They were ferrying US Business to the first US Commerce Trade show in Nov 1980. A few weeks later the awards of the first routes to China were made to PA and NW. CAAC at that time flew only 707's internationally and those were limited to PEK-HKG and PEK_NRT routes.

Poor PA the National merger really killed the airline. 1985's selling of TPAC routes, Intercontinental hotel chain, PA Building -- then Bankruptcy and sale of routes to Delta plus LHR slots to UA..
PA led the way in Frequent Flier programs. What they did the others had to emulate.

As far as food on UA. Nothing beat the Caviar in International FC and in domestic F the deli cart with rare roast beef, and tons of cocktail sized shrimp. Kind of funny the deli cart was the second meal on the flight!

I do remember frequent op upgrades on UA to C fro Y. On Pan Am from Europe Op upgrades from C to F were frequent.

bearkatt

I remember when frank Lorenzo owner of texas international airlines tried a hostile takeover of pan am.

dilanesp

There were definitely fare more op-ups in the 1980's. The thing is, the other way to look at that is that if you were a frequent flyer, who should have been rewarded, you might instead be back in coach while the gate agent's buddy got upgraded.

Indeed, one of the things about flying back in the day that I really don't miss at all was what used to be referred to on travel websites as "the speech". It was these people who would line up at the gate every time they took a flight and try to browbeat the weary gate agent, who had other, more important things to do, into giving them an upgrade they didn't pay for. I would be trying to gate-check a bag or asking whether a window seat was available, and I had to wait behind a couple of these guys.

I'm all for op-ups when they are truly necessary. Sometimes they are either a legitimate customer service gesture or a response to a sudden change of equipment or some sort of overbooking issue. But in general, I like the idea of the status-controlled upgrade list. It is a distinct improvement.

BBSHOPSINGER

My experience flying in the 70's and 80's was somewhat limited, but I did do some flying, including international coach. It was more comfortable, but only because I was a lot younger, and I ended up with a whole row to myself. I hated flying for the most part because the cabins were filled with smoke.

I flew a lot in the 90's, including several international flights in business. I thought it was great, but compared with the lie-flat comfort and IFE available now in business, it was nothing. If anyone had the seats and service now in business class that they did then, they wouldn't sell any seats, and would have nothing but complaints here on FT.

cerealmarketer

A lot more than National went on with Pan Am

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/18/b...-struggle.html

Fun fact discussed above - Trippe in the 30s lobbied to require presidential approval of overseas route awards. That worked in his favor for a while, then the Johnson administration got very Texas friendly - to the benefit of

You could argue jumbo jets disrupted Pan Am - loads of new capacity - and they had an uncompetitive cost structure from a time they had a monopoly on many routes.

UA's pickup of Pacific has to be right up there with the DL/NW merger in best airline deals of all time

rustykettel

From the NYT article

LAX_AUS_DL_FLYER

Actually Pan Am came very close to merging with Northwest in 1989. The alliance would've been PA / KL / NW much like the DL / KL / AF alliance in 2009 and that would've solved the domestic problem at Pan Am. Talks were removed at apparently the last second and Delta swooped in shortly after that. In this excerpt I read I think it recalled that it was actually some of the banks and KLM that called off the deal. The Dutch and Pan Am Corporate in NYC didn't get along all that well. IIRC, Pan Am even thought the deal was a slam dunk too.

A318neo

Domestic coach seating was better than today's economy class. It had more padding. Leg room was a bit more. However, the overhead bins were somewhat smaller. In the early 1980's, there were no rollaboards so carry on did fit the overhead bins of that era. There was a smoking section, which isn't good for non-smokers and smokers who don't want to smoke at the moment.

vaguba

Goofy video from United for their inaugural 777 flight:

747FC

TI am all for meritocracy, but one of my most memorable flight was from PBI-ORD back in the day when GA’s ruled. Turns out the woman who checked my bags and who gave me my boarding pass must have taken a liking towards me. She turned out to be the GA for that flight and called my name for an unexpected upgrade. It was a surprise and delight experience.

Another memorable flight was from DCA during terrible IRROPS. I got on board, and in F. Turned out the seat next to me remained unoccupied. Asked the GA who did the final check if she could grab a colleague who was not boarded, and put him in the seat next to me. Done!

seagar

Anyone else remember getting to the gate early so you could ask the agent for your seats which were on a board behing the counter and they would actually pull the seat number/sticker off the paper layout and stick it on your paper ticket? Or, the monthly OAG subscription that you used to find flights...a 4x9 booklet that came in the mail for the traveler.and a larger version in the office? There was no internet, only the OAG guide or the telephone.