Pan Am's 60-year history from glory to crushing bankruptcy

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[h=1]Glamorous air hostesses, exotic ads and America's earliest planes: Captivating images trace Pan Am's 60-year history from glory to crushing bankruptcy[/h]

• Pan American Airlines pioneered the era of commercial flight from its bold inception in the late 1920s
• It won fame as history's most iconic airline, thanks in part to its alluring adverts and glamorous cabin crew
• However, Pan Am was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1991 after a long and agonizing financial decline

By Annabel Fenwick Elliott for MailOnline
PUBLISHED: 07:30, 4 February 2017 | UPDATED: 14:37, 4 February 2017

 

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These days, mass air travel is far from a glamorous affair.
But we can only imagine how exciting it would have been when it first broke onto the scene in the late 1920s - and no carrier was more pivotal to its development than Pan American Airways.
From its modest beginnings at a time when flying was still absurdly expensive (and considered far from safe), Pan Am refused to consider anything impossible and single-handedly revolutionized air travel - in part thanks to its highly effective publicity campaigns.
The pioneering airline launched the world's first commercial flight across the Pacific in 1935, and over the next 30-plus years, stood at the forefront of nearly all significant advances in the industry.
Pan Am's immaculately turned-out staff, too, contributed to the company’s image of friendliness, precision and reliability - but none of that was enough to save the company from crashing into bankruptcy in 1991.
These photos, taken from Pan Am: History, Design & Identity, a recent celebration of its past, prove that despite its eventual demise, no airline has even come close in terms of its glittering legacy.

 

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From its inception in 1927, Pan American Airways single-handedly revolutionized air travel and pioneered a new era of commercial flight. Pictured, one of its Boeing 377s photographed in 1949

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Its meteoric rise to success came in part thanks to its highly effective publicity campaigns. Pictured, left, an alluring ad from 1949 and right, the grinning face of an air hostess on a poster from 1950

 

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Pan Am's very first logo in 1929, left, would soon become a world-famous symbol as the airline grew, and it didn't change much over the years. The logo on the right dates to 1942

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In 1929, Pan Am was one of the first companies after the Navy to acquire this twin-engined amphibious aircraft model, the Sikorsky S-38, which carried a maximum of eight passengers at a speed of 100 mph

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By 1932, the airline had upgraded to Sikorsky S-40 planes, which could carry 38 passengers and was marginally faster with a speed of 115 mph

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Passengers are seen boarding the same plane in 1932, dressed to the nines in honour of this new and staggering feat of engineering

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Pan Am’s marine air terminal in Miami at Dinner Key, pictured in 1932, was privately built by the airline and on most days, eager spectators vastly outnumbered the actual passengers

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Pictured, left, a Marting M-130 in 1935 and right, a Sikorsky S-42 taking off in 1936. Pan Am didn't decide to end seaplane services in favour of landplanes until the mid-1940s

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For Pan Am to run commercial flights between the United States and Asia successfully, landing rights in Shanghai - pictured under a Pan Am Douglas DC-2 in 1936 - were essential

Designs for Pan Am's colourful luggage labels through the ages, pictured from left, in 1935, 1937, 1964 and 1977

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By 1939, Pan Am's growing fleet included the Boeing 314 seaplane, pictured left taking off from Washington's Puget Sound, and right, soaring over New York's Long Island

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Built in 1939 to handle Pan Am's sea planes, New York's art deco International Marine Air Terminal, pictured, remains the state's only surviving terminal from the first generation of air travel

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The Boeing 377, introduced in 1947 and pictured here in Trujillo, Peru, in 1956, set a new standard in aircraft interior design, when the passenger compartments of earlier aircraft interiors were removed to create a single open space interior

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Vibrant and inspirational posters advertised Pan Am's transatlantic routes, pictured left in 1940, and right, a decade later in 1950

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The jet age really took off at the end of 1958, pictured, and Pan Am's immaculately turned-out staff contributed greatly to the company’s image of friendliness, precision and reliability

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Pan Am was the launch customer of the Boeing 707, pictured in 1960 - the first jetliner in history to be commercially successful

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Pictured, left, the driveway and main entrance to Pan Am's dedicated terminal in New York in 1962, and right, its grand Panorama Room Restaurant. They were located at what is now the JFK terminal

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A butler serves drinks in 1962 from inside the first class lounge as a gaggle of well-heeled passengers await their flight

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Pan Am founded the Intercontinental Hotel Corporation in the mid-1940s to accommodate its crew and passengers in destinations where upscale hotels were not yet present. Pictured, the Phoenicia Intercontinental, in Beirut, in 1962

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Pictured left, the lobby of Ecuador's Intercontinental Quito in the late 1960s, and right, actor John Wayne boarding a Pan Am Boeing 707 in 1965

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The next massive jump in aircraft innovation came around with the birth of the Boeing 747, pictured left under construction in 1968 and right, undergoing a test flight the following year

 

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[h=3]WHY DID PAN AM GO BUST?[/h]Pan Am's lasting and positive image from its inception in 1929 is remarkable in view of its long and agonizing decline, which began in the late 1960s and noticeably affected the quality of passenger services from about 1980 onward.
Perhaps the single most decisive reason for Pan Am’s decay was its inability to secure political support for acquisition of an American domestic route network in its home market.
By the time it seriously started to lobby for them in the early 1940s, it had become by far the world’s most powerful airline, and other US airlines convincingly argued that Pan Am would create a monopoly if allowed to compete with them.
Over the next decades, its increasingly dire financial situation led to the gradual sale of its various divisions. In April 1985, it sold off its Pacific division - 25 per cent of its entire route network - to United Airlines.
Things only worsened when, on December 21, 1988, Libyan terrorists bombed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, resulting in 103 passenger fatalities. The airline was later slapped with a $300million lawsuit filed by more than 100 families of the flight.
Pan Am was finally forced to declare bankruptcy on January 8, 1991. Its last remaining profitable assets were purchased by Delta Air Lines, and the rest faded into history.

 

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Pan Am was the first airline to order the Boeing 747, pictured here in a poster from 1970 - an aircraft which is still the most recognised model in the world

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An advert from 1970 hailed this Pan Am plane a 'space ship' and boasted about extras including two aisles instead of one, plus wider seats and the first overhead luggage compartments

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Pan Am's agonizing decline began in the late 1960s and noticeably affected the quality of passenger services from about 1980, pictured