page_title: Pan Am
section_title: Formation
hierarchical_section_title: Pan Am / History / Formation
caption_attribution_description: English: Flown cover autographed and carried by pilot Cy Caldwell in the Fairchild FC-2 floatplane "La NiÃ±a" from Key West. FL, to Havana, Cuba, on the first ever Air Mail flight made under contract by Pan American Airways (FAM-4) October 19, 1927
context_page_description: Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial flag carrier of the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991. It was founded in 1927 as a scheduled air mail and passenger service operating between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba. The airline is credited for many innovations that shaped the international airline industry, including the widespread use of jet aircraft, jumbo jets, and computerized reservation systems. It was also a founding member of the International Air Transport Association, the global airline industry association.
  Identified by its blue globe logo, the use of the word "Clipper" in its aircraft names and call signs, and the white uniform caps of its pilots, the airline was a cultural icon of the 20th century. In an era dominated by flag carriers that were wholly or majority government-owned, it was also the unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States. During most of the jet era, Pan Am's flagship terminal was the Worldport located at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.
context_section_description: Pan American Airways, Incorporated (PAA) was founded as a shell company on March 14, 1927 by Air Corps Majors Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Carl A. Spaatz, and John H. Jouett as a counterbalance to the German-owned Colombian carrier SCADTA, operating in Colombia since 1920. SCADTA lobbied hard for landing rights in the Panama Canal Zone, ostensibly to survey air routes for a connection to the United States, which the Air Corps viewed as a precursor to a possible German aerial threat to the canal. Arnold and Spaatz drew up the prospectus for Pan American when SCADTA hired a company in Delaware to obtain air mail contracts from the US government. Pan American was able to obtain the US mail delivery contract to Cuba, but lacked any aircraft to perform the job and did not have landing rights in Cuba.
  Juan Trippe formed the Aviation Corporation of the Americas (ACA) on June 2, 1927, with the backing of powerful and politically connected financiers who included Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney and W. Averell Harriman, and raised $250,000 in startup capital from the sale of stock. Their operation had the all-important landing rights for Havana, having acquired American International Airways, a small airline established in 1926 by John K. Montgomery and Richard B. Bevier as a seaplane service from Key West, Florida, to Havana. ACA met its deadline of having an airmail service operating by October 19, 1927, by chartering a Fairchild FC-2 floatplane from a small Dominican Republic carrier, West Indian Aerial Express.
  The Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean Airways company was established on October 11, 1927 by New York City investment banker Richard Hoyt, who served as president. This company merged with PAA and ACA on June 23, 1928.
  Richard Hoyt was named as president of the new Aviation Corporation of the Americas, but Trippe and his partners held 40% of the equity and Whitney was made president. Trippe became operational head of Pan American Airways, the new company's principal operating subsidiary.
  The US government approved the original Pan Am's mail delivery contract with little objection, out of fears that SCADTA would have no competition in bidding for routes between Latin America and the United States. The government further helped Pan Am by insulating it from its US competitors, seeing the airline as the "chosen instrument" for US-based international air routes. The airline expanded internationally, benefiting from a virtual monopoly on foreign routes.
  Trippe and his associates planned to extend Pan Am's network through all of Central and South America. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Pan Am purchased a number of ailing or defunct airlines in Central and South America and negotiated with postal officials to win most of the government's airmail contracts to the region. In September 1929 Trippe toured Latin America with Charles Lindbergh to negotiate landing rights in a number of countries, including Barranquilla on SCADTA's home turf of Colombia, as well as Maracaibo and Caracas in Venezuela. By the end of the year, Pan Am offered flights along the west coast of South America to Peru. The following year, Pan Am purchased the New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires Line, giving it a seaplane route along the east coast of South America to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and westbound to Santiago, Chile. Its Brazilian subsidiary NYRBA do Brasil was later renamed as Panair do Brasil. Pan Am also partnered with Grace Shipping Company in 1929 to form Pan American-Grace Airways, better known as Panagra, to gain a foothold to destinations in South America. In the same year, Pan Am acquired a controlling stake in Mexicana de Aviación and took over Mexicana's Ford Trimotor route between Brownsville, Texas and Mexico City, extending this service to the Yucatan Peninsula to connect with Pan Am's Caribbean route network.
  Pan Am's holding company, the Aviation Corporation of the Americas, was one of the most sought after stocks on the New York Curb Exchange in 1929, and flurries of speculation surrounded each of its new route awards. In April 1929 Trippe and h
caption: Flown cover autographed by pilot Cy Caldwell and carried from Key West, FL, to Havana, Cuba, on the first contract air mail flight operated by Pan American Airways, October 19, 1927
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