The Pan Am Podcast
Experience the legacy of the world’s most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways! This award-winning history and humanities program brings Pan Am’s 64-year history to life through engaging storytelling and insightful interviews from Pan Am employees, passengers, pilots, journalists, historians, authors, fashionistas, and aviation enthusiasts! Hosted by historian Tom Betti, the program has won the following awards: Gold 2024 & 2023 Muse Creative Awards; Gold 2024 Vega Digital Award; Silver 2023 Vega Digital Award; Gold Award from the 2023 Hear Now Palooza of the National Audio Theater Festivals; Silver 2022 Muse Creative Award; Arcturus 2022 Vega Digital Award (Podcast); and Arcturus 2022 Vega Digital Award (Best Host). The Pan Am Podcast is brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York and is sponsored by the generous personal support of Mr. Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Theatres and President of the Pan Am Historical Foundation. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization and would appreciate your consideration of tax-deductible donations.
The Pan Am Podcast
Episode 16: Aviation Pioneers, Birth of an Airline, and Dodging the KGB
In this episode we explore the founding of Pan Am and the early years of the airline.
Juan T. Trippe is widely known as the principle founder of Pan Am and rightly so. However, the early history of Pan Am is very complex and at times quite confusing with multiple people and mergers involved.
Then we are joined by George Hambleton, whose father John Hambleton was a co-founder of Pan Am and close friend and business partner of both Juan Trippe and Charles Lindbergh.
Like his father, George also worked for Pan Am, having been sent on special assignment by Juan Trippe to Moscow at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s.
George talks about his celebrated father and share stories about his time working behind the iron curtain.
Recently, the Pan Am Museum opened a new exhibit called the Pioneer’s Wall dedicated to those passionate visionaries who were instrumental in building the strong foundations of the airline that would become Pan American World Airways.
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A very special thanks to Mr. Adam Aron, Chairman and CEO of AMC and president of the Pan Am Historical Foundation and Pan Am Brands for their continued and unwavering support!
