PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS

Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States for much of the 20th century. It was the first airline to fly worldwide and pioneered numerous innovations of the modern airline industry such as jumbo jets, and computerised reservation systems. Until its dissolution in 1991, Pan Am 'epitomised the luxury and glamour of intercontinental travel' and it remains a cultural icon of the 20th century, identified by its blue globe logo ('The Blue Meatball') the use of the word 'Clipper' in its aircraft names and call signs and the white uniform caps of its pilots.

- ATHOL FRANZ

Founded in 1927 by two former US Army Air Corps majors, Pan Am began as a scheduled airmail and passenger service flying between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba. Under the leadership of American entrepreneur Juan Trippe, in the 1930s the airline purchased a fleet of flying boats and focused its route network on Central and South America, gradually adding transatlantic and transpacific destinations. By the mid-20th century, Pan Am enjoyed a near monopoly on international routes. It led the aircraft industry into the Jet Age by acquiring new jetliners such as the Boeing 707 and Boeing 747.

Pan Am’s modern fleet allowed it to fly larger numbers of passengers, at a longer range and with fewer stops than rivals. Its primary hub and flagship terminal was the Worldport at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

At its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Pan Am advertised under the slogan, the ‘World’s Most Experienced Airline’. It carried 6.7 million passengers in 1966 and by 1968, its 150 jets flew to 86 countries on every continent except for Antarctica over a scheduled route network of 81,410 unduplicated miles (131,000 km).