What happened to Pan Am?

Pan Am, once rated "The world's most experience airline", filed for bankruptcy in 1991. What went wrong?

In order to fully understand, lets start from the beginning of Pan Am:

In 1927, Pan Am world airways was founded by 2 US Air Force Majors as an airmail service between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba, making it the United States' first regularly scheduled international flight and after a year of successful mail flights, Pan Am made their first passenger flights to Havana.

By the 1930s, Pan Am was a very successful airline with a large fleet of flying boats, clippers and some traditional planes. It also had a very large network of flights in North and South America.

After a few more years, they started to have flights to every continent in the world (except for Antarctica) and were world-renowned for its amazing service, but they wanted bigger jet airplanes, so they placed a large order for Boeing's brand new 747s, which was highly requested by them.

But what they did not know is that it was a FATAL mistake which would eventually lead to the demise of Pan Am.

The 1970s and 80s were the worst years for Pan Am ever. Shortly after receiving multiple Boeing 747s and using them for their operations, the US oil crisis of 1979 hit. Fuel prices were skyrocketing and their 747s used 4 engines, which were very inefficient. That combined with the worst plane crash in aviation history in 1977 which involved one of their 747s, was almost enough to make the world's oldest airline bankrupt.

However, Pan Am managed to survive. They did not claim bankruptcy yet but every day, they were suffering a loss of 3 MILLION DOLLARS, but they just acted like it was business as usual and continued their flights. To make matters worse, they bought National Airlines for a hefty sum of money, thinking that the revenue would cover their debt, but obviously, it did not.

At that point, Pan Am was like a sick dog waiting to be put down.

The final blow for Pan Am was in 1988 when one of their airplane got blown up, and they got lawsuited because of their bad security.

Finally, after 65 years of flight, Pan American World Airways filed for bankruptcy.

In summary, the factors that led to the demise of Pan Am were:

. 1977 Tenerife Airport Disaster

. 1979 US oil crisis

. Purchase of National Airlines

. Bombing of one of their flights in 1988

In my opinion, Pan Am could have survived until present day if they did not buy so many Boeing 747s and improved their security.

As of December 2020, it has officially been 30 years since Pan Am has ceased operations.

Rest in peace, Pan American World Airways, we will miss you <3

Have you flown Pan Am? Comment below :D

Image: Simple Flying

Article sources: Simple Flying, Business Insider

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