Pan American World Airways

**Pan American World Airways**, originally founded as **Pan American Airways** and commonly known as **Pan Am**, is the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial flag carrier of the United States since 1927. It was founded in 1927 as a scheduled airmail 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 (IATA), the global airline industry association.

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, 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.

## Corporate affairs

For much of its history the corporate headquarters were the Pan Am Building in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.

When Juan Trippe had the company offices relocated to New York City, he rented space in a building on 42nd Street. This facility was across from the Grand Central Terminal. From a period in the 1930s until 1963, the airline headquarters were in the Chrysler Building, on 135 East 42nd Street, also in Midtown Manhattan.

In September 1960 Trippe and developer Erwin Wolfson signed a $115,500,000 lease agreement for the airline to occupy 613,000-square-foot (56,900 m2) worth of space for the headquarters, totaling about 15 floors, and a new main ticket office at the intersection of 45th Street and Vanderbilt Avenue. At the time, the 30-year lease in the Chrysler Building was nearing the end of its life. The new lease was scheduled for 25 years.

## In popular culture

Pan Am held a lofty position in the popular culture of the Cold War era. One of the most famous images in which a Pan Am plane formed a backdrop was the Beatles' February 7, 1964 arrival at John F. Kennedy Airport aboard a Pan Am Boeing 707-321, *Clipper Defiance*.

From 1964 to 1968 con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr., masqueraded as a Pan Am pilot, dead-heading to many destinations in the cockpit jump seat. He also used Pan Am's preferred hotels, paid the bills with bogus checks, and later cashed fake payroll checks in Pan Am's name. He documented this era in the memoir *Catch Me if You Can*, which became a film in 2002. Abagnale called Pan Am the "Ritz-Carlton of airlines," and noted that the days of luxury in airline travel were over.

In August 1964 Pan Am accepted the reservation of Gerhard Pistor, a journalist from Vienna, Austria, as the first passenger for future flights to the Moon. He paid a deposit of 500 Austrian Schillings (roughly US$20 at the time). About 93,000 people followed on the Pan Am waiting list, called "First Moon Flights Club". Pan Am expected the flight to depart about 2000.

A fictional Pan Am "Space Clipper," a commercial spaceplane called the *Orion III*, had a prominent role in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film *2001: A Space Odyssey* and was featured prominently in one of the movie's posters. Plastic models of the 2001 Pan Am Space Clipper were sold by both the Aurora Company and Airfix at the time of the film's release in 1968. A satire of the movie by *Mad* magazine in 1968 showed Pan Am female flight attendants in "Actionwear by Monsanto" outfits as they joked about the problems their passengers faced while vomiting in zero gravity. The film's sequel, *2010*, also featured Pan Am in a background television commercial in the home of David Bowman's widow with the slogan, "At Pan Am, the sky is no longer the limit."

The airline appeared in other movies, notably in several James Bond films. The company's Boeing 707s were featured in *Dr. No* (1962) and *From Russia with Love* (1963), while a Pan Am 747 and the Worldport appeared in the 1973 film *Live and Let Die*.

A term used in popular psychology is "Pan American (or Pan Am) Smile." Named after the greeting stewardesses supposedly gave to passengers. It consists of a perfunctory mouth movement without the activity of facial muscles around the eyes that characterizes a genuine smile.

The 1982 film *Blade Runner* contains several prominent shots of advertisements for Pan Am. The 2017 sequel, *Blade Runner 2049* also shows a Pan Am sign in an establishing shot.

In 2011, ABC announced a new television series based on the lives of a 1960s Pan Am flight crew. The series, titled *Pan Am*, began airing in September 2011. It was canceled in May 2012.

## Destinations

Main article: Pan American World Airways/Destinations

## See also

* Avensa
* Pan Am Air Bridge (Chalk's International Airlines sold its seaplane operations to a group of investors who operated Chalk's under the *Bridge* name with Pan Am logos)
* Boston-Maine Airways (operates Pan Am Clipper Connection)
* Pan Am Railways
* Pan Am Systems
* Pan American Airways Guided Missile Range Division