Posted on 09/15/2024 6:32:29 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Pan Am could be on to something with this whole nostalgia thing.
The airline has set a second 2025 voyage tracing the legendary Southern and Northern Transatlantic Routes pioneered by Pan American World Airways.
Traveling by privately chartered jet with accommodations at a curated selection of iconic hotels, the newly added 12-day voyage—again limited to 50 guests in a Boeing 757 aircraft configured with all Business Class lie-flat seating—will depart June 16-28, 2025, roundtrip from New York City.
(Excerpt) Read more at travelpulse.com ...
My first flight was on Midway Airlines from JFK to Midway Airport in Chicago, going to college. I was thrilled just to be flying.
MAGA!!!
I flew them. Flew in Lockheed Constellations, the civvie version of the c97 (Boeing 377 Stratocruiser), old navy C-47, etc.
What I’d really like is a trip aboard a replica China Clipper....
What year was that?
These were flights all in 1950s decade, IIRC. The Navy C47 was a taildragger up in Iceland around 1975 used to fly out to the gravel runways over at the Hofn radar site. The Pan Am China Clipper was a pre war flying boat (Martin M-130).
So cool
“My first flight was on Midway Airlines from JFK to Midway Airport in Chicago, going to college. I was thrilled just to be flying.”
My first flight was Little Rock, AR to basic training in San Antonio via DFW. I was 21 but the flight attendants knew I was on the way to basic so I couldn’t get a beer. The people in DFW didn’t know or care.
Somehow I missed my connection and the later flight put me as the oldest and only southern boy in a group from New York/New Jersey.
Much hilarity ensued!
PanAm (charter, I presume) flew me home from Vietnam.
I was happy to see the logo on Kubrick’s hypersonic
scramjet orbital flyer, and I was sad to learn when
PanAm stopped.
Thanks for your service
Readyyyy.... TWO!
My grandfather was a machinist/welder for Pan Am after the war. I went to work in the same hanger after Pan Am went out of business
1972, TWA, 747, NY to Germany.
Pan Am was killed by their unions, with complicity by management.
Management SHOULD have told the unions to either moderate their demands, or they would dissolve the company. But that would have put management out of work too.
So they would just sell assets and lease them back, until there was nothing left.
I thought they went out of business several years ago.
My first flight....
Northeast Airlines, New York / La Guardia to Boston and, after a short time at Logan, the flight continued on to Bangor, Maine....my father and I. I think it was a DC-9.
Northeast Airlines was acquired by Delta in 1972.
The merger with National Airlines didn’t help Pan Am either.
My first flight on an airliner was in 1980 from San Francisco to Anchorage with a stopover in Seattle on a Boeing 727. I was a teenager and traveled alone. I spent the summer in Anchorage with my uncle, aunt, and cousin. We visited Mount McKinley, Kenai, and Soldotna and ate fresh salmon.
My first flight in any plane was in 1975 when my Dad’s flight instructor took me for a ride in a Citabria. My Dad was working on his private license.
I thought they went out of business several years ago.
They did, but the rest is complicated. David Fink of Guilford Railroad bought the primary final assets including the name and intended to create a new airline to go along with railroad which he renamed Pan Am and ran through the Northeast for several years. A couple of years ago Pan Am was sold to CSX Railroad who has wipe away the Pan Am name. The group flying these planes bought the rights to the name. So it is just a marketing gimmick like the remergence of Abercombie and Fitch long after that company closed down.
Where I grew up on Long Island, there was a man who lived down the road on four acres. He and his wife had horses.
He was a pilot for Pan Am and was one of the first pilots to fly the 747 across the Atlantic from JFK.
In 1970, Middle Eastern terrorists, on the same day, hijacked a number of flights heading from Europe to New York. The airlines involved were Swissair, BOAC (the predecessor to British Airways), TWA, and a Pan Am 747.
All of the aircraft were flown to an airstrip in Egypt, where all four aircraft were blown up. At least the bad guys allowed the passengers and crew to go down the emergency slides first.
Shortly after that, the airlines starting using air marshals on their European routes.
Not long after that, my father crossed paths with this Pan Am pilot at the base of our driveway as they were driving past. He and his wife were chatting with my dad. The subject of the recent hijackings came up.
The Pan Am pilot said, “They better not try to fuc-—g hijack me, I have a fuc-—g gun in the cockpit!”
The pilot’s wife said, “Ed, what about the fuselage?”
He responded, “F-— the fuselage!”
Speaking of his wife, as I mentioned she and her husband had horses.
My father told me that once at a neighborhood New Year’s Eve party, the pilot’s wife rode one of their horses up and down the road buck naked like Lady Godiva!
When my father told me that story, I said to him, “You were a lifelong photographer. You couldn’t have taken some pictures?”
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