SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museums are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here, and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for, or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper. My name is Tom Betty and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Our mission statement is to educate, celebrate, and inspire present and future generations by preserving historical and diverse personal stories of Pan American World Airways. Please visit our website for more information at the Pan Ammuseum.org. Again, our website is the Panamuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. In this episode, we will be exploring two of the subsidiaries of Pan Am, the Intercontinental Hotels and the Pan Am Guided Missiles Range Division. Yep, you heard that right. The airline company had its own hotel chain that it founded for about 30 years, and Pan Am did aerospace work for the US government, including the space program, for almost 40 years. An airline running a hotel chain and a missile testing facility? Why? Because the American government asked them to. Later in the podcast, we will be joined by Jennifer Coates Clay, a leader in the aviation business in the field of aircraft interiors, corporate identity, and branding. She's also a pioneer for women in the airline industry. Jennifer joined Pan Am in 1986 as general manager for product design and development. She is also the author of the book Jetliner Cabins. You can find a link in the episode description to purchase this book from the museum store. There's also a robust e-book available at Jetlinercabins.com. But first, let's explore the lesser-known history of Pan Am in the hotel and aerospace business. In early 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Pan Am founder and chairman Juan Tripp had breakfast at the White House to discuss Latin America. Both men were thinking of the post-war world and how they could strengthen American economic interests in the region. President Roosevelt suggested that in order to attract business executives to invest in Latin America, luxury hotels needed to be built first to demonstrate what was possible with tourism and beyond. With the end of the war in sight, advancements in aviation technology, and an abundance of landing strips, Tripp was already dreaming of the next generation of aircraft that could fly to even more remote and exotic places connecting the world. But his challenge would be: where would his customers stay, as most destinations did not have adequate accommodations, let alone meet the high standards of his passengers. Both gentlemen were in agreement on the need of American luxury hotels in Latin America. Roosevelt encouraged Tripp to expand into the hotel business. The president offered to support Tripp's efforts with assistance in any way he could with the full backing of the U.S. government. Tripp saw the enormous potential and agreed to form a Pan Am subsidiary to investigate the feasibility of the venture and pledged $1 million investments from the airline. Shortly before he died, FDR provided government support in the form of a $25 million credit from the Export Import Bank. While also overseeing a massive post-war expansion of Pan American Airways, it would take Tripp a little over a year after his breakfast meeting with Roosevelt to put all the pieces together to form International Hotel Corporation on April 3rd, 1946. The name would later be changed to Intercontinental Hotel Company shortly thereafter. After a couple years of development, planning, and financing, the new company struck a deal worth $6.2 million with three existing hotels in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia to renovate and manage them. After that, the Pan Am subsidiary continued to grow at a rapid rate, stretching from South America to the Caribbean, to Saudi Arabia, to Japan. Intercontinental hotels grew along Pan Am's routes, becoming the first international hotel company to operate in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. What made the hotel brand unique is that each hotel embraced their city's local culture, architecture, and cuisine as much as possible to ensure that guests experience a truly luxurious and tailored experience that is one of a kind and memorable. By 1970, Intercontinental Hotels Corporation was operating 60 hotels in some 50 countries and not only continued to expand, but produced much needed profits for the airline, especially in the 1970s, when Pan Am struggled with an economic recession, the oil crisis, and terrorism, all factors that negatively impact passengers booking flights. By 1981, as Pan Amerged from one of the most troubled mergers in business history after it acquired National Airlines, the Intercontinental Hotels were one of the only areas actually making money for the company. The National Airlines acquisition turned out to be a nightmare of unexpected costs and mismanagements, and the airline was hemorrhaging cash. Thus, Pan Am reluctantly sold the Intercontinental Hotel subsidiary for $500 million in cash to Grand Metropolitan Corporation. At the time of the sale, the profitable Intercontinental chain had 97 hotels in operation or under construction in 48 countries. Today, One Trip's hotel legacy lives on with the Intercontinental Hotels and Resorts as the world's first truly international luxury hotel brand, with hotels and some of the world's best-known and up-and-coming destinations, currently operating 206 hotels, with at the time of this recording, 70 new hotels in development. Now on to the other Pan American subsidiary we'll be talking about, the Pan Am Guided Missiles Range Division. During the space race that began in the 1950s, Pan Am's subsidiary was instrumental in the development and testing of aerospace projects that were essential to the American Space Program. Along with many others, the company was involved with the building and operating of America's first space launch complex base in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The company supported testing for more than 2,500 launches, including early air-breathing missiles and the manned shuttle program. For almost 40 years, it provided full facilities maintenance support, including airport master planning, construction management, and engineering services. In 1950, members of the Defense Department under the Truman administration approached Pan Am with encouragement to form a new aerospace division to help the government advance its strategic and defense priorities. Three years later, under President Eisenhower, the subsidiary was formally formed with its first government contract for operations and maintenance for the U.S. Air Force's joint long-range proving ground at Cape Canaveral on July 1st, 1953. The Panam Company operated under the direction of the U.S. Air Force and retained operational offices within Patrick Air Force Base at what was then called the Tech Lab and Building 423. The Technical Services Division was formed in 1974 to handle space facility design and real-time computer applications. In 1976, the Base Support Services Division was created to provide virtually all non-military functions for the U.S. Navy's West Coast Trident Submarine Base at Bangor, Washington. In 1979, the company reorganized and consolidated all aerospace and military support operations, as well as the division that operated the Manhattan Heliport into a subsidiary called Pan Am World Services, or PAUS for short. The new Pan Am World Services provided facility management services for military bases, space centers, and airports, as well as consultant services to aerospace companies and approved foreign governments for airline maintenance, facility development, and airport planning. In 1989, Pan Am was in what turned out to be an unrecoverable financial spiral. Reeling from the Lockerby terrorist bombing that downed a Jumbo Jet a year before, as well as mounting debt in economic turmoil, the company began to dramatically shed assets. Pan Am sold its subsidiary Paws, its last remaining profitable entity, to Johnson Controls for $110 million. In 2005, IAP bought what was once Pan Am World Services from Johnson Controls. Jennifer began her career at British Airways, where she earned broad experience in marketing and operational management assignments across the airline network. In 1979, she was appointed Head of Operations and Sales for Western USA, the first woman to be appointed to such a position in the airline. Jennifer joined Pan Am in 1986 as general manager for product design and development. In this capacity, she completed a three-year, $25 million fleet upgrade program, redesigning all major aspects of the Pan Am passenger service product. After Pan Am, she founded her own firm, J. Clay Consulting, and has worked with a broad range of organizations, including Shorthaul and Long Haul Airlines, aviation suppliers, legal firms, and design specialists. Jennifer is the author of the book Jetliner Cabins. You can find a link in the episode description to purchase this book from the museum store. There's also a robust e-book available at Jetlinercabins.com. Jennifer Coates Clay is now an American citizen and lives in New York City. Welcome to the Pantiam Podcast, Jennifer.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

Thank you, Tom. Thank you for your invitation to join you.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

It's a pleasure to have you. Can you tell us about how you got started in the aviation business?

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Oh, well, that was quite a long time ago. In at the beginning of the 1970s, I joined British Airways and I worked in training, technical training, remote learning, machine training, sales training, reservations training, training for British Airways, sales staff and travel agencies and other associated businesses. And then I moved to line management. I was the first woman in British Airways to be head of a region, and that means responsible for operations, sales, cargo, catering, airports, communications. My area was West USA. I was based in Los Angeles. And the other stations were San Francisco, Seattle, and Anchorage, all wide body service. And then I was as head of Scotland in the UK, again head of the region. And then I moved to head office, Sweetbird House, at London Heathrow Airport. I was controller corporate identity, and I was responsible for the implementation of the corporate identity program of change when British Airways was transitioning from government ownership to investor ownership, the privatization program.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Did you work on the Concorde and what was it like to fly on it?

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Yes, that was one of the highlights, I would say, of my aviation career because Concorde is such an amazing aircraft. And as part of the corporate identity program, we handled all the aircraft exteriors, interiors, we looked after uh airport, lounges, ground vehicles, city ticket offices, uniforms, stationary documentation, uh, all the visual aspects of the airline. The change was required because of the transition to investor ownership. And Concord was the halo, really, um, of the British Airways marketing program. So this was a wonderful opportunity. And uh inside the Concord, we installed the first leather seat covers, grey leather, Balmoral Grey, from Andrew Muirhead, the leather company based near Glasgow, Scotland. And uh the exterior was uh white, bright white, with the uh British Airways corporate logo on the exterior, the coat of arms on the tail. And yes, I did fly on Concord. I was very fortunate as a staff member for technical reasons to see how this new interior program was going to work. And then later in my career, I flew as a commercial customer, both on BA and Air France. And the amazing thing, when you're at 58,000 feet, there isn't any turbulence, and you feel that everything is totally serene. And you can look through the windows. The windows of Concord are six and a half inches high and four and a half inches wide, about the size of a normal passport. And you look out towards this deep blue indigo-colored horizon and sky area, and you could see the curvature of planet Earth. And I have to say, this is one of the mind-opening experiences. And of course, all the passengers they used to compete to get the window seats for the reasons I've mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

So then you were noticed by Pan Am recruiters and joined the company. When was that?

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Yes, I came to New York City uh August 1986, and I was based at the Pan Am Building on Park Avenue. Specifically, uh I was working on the corporate identity program, the upgrade, uh for the new look for Pan Am. And uh my office was on the fifth floor of the Pan Am building.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Did you feel like you were joining something special?

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Oh, yes. Pan Am has a wonderful uh tradition and a wonderful reputation uh worldwide, and I was really thrilled to become part of the Pan Am family. I always felt greatly welcomed. Uh, my job title was General Manager, product design and development. And um, of course, Pan Am had iconic status. Um, in those days, the three most recognized corporate identities were um uh Sony, um Pan Am, Coca-Cola, and then there were others, of course, Disney. And nowadays we talk about Apple and Amazon and Google, but Pan Am was always at the top of all the lists of uh corporate recognition and still holds very, very high ratings. People still remember uh the Pan Am logo.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Tell us about the Pan Am customer experience and how it was different from other airlines.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Well, Pan Am had such a wonderful reputation for uh customer care. And in the major cities, Pan Am always had excellent city ticket offices. And some of these city ticket offices um were a bit like branches of an embassy or a consul, in that they had the documentation that passengers needed for traveling with the uh Clipper Club and the frequent traveller programs. Um there were special telephone numbers that uh passengers could use, and um passengers always felt that they were being looked after at a personal level by Pan Am. And of course, Pan Am was the launch customer for the Boeing 747. That was uh January 1970, the first um uh scheduled flight. And so Pan Am had this leadership position. Other airlines had to scramble to catch up. So um Pan Am's reputation really was top-notch and uh deservedly so. Um, what I found personally um at Pan Am was that everybody um, you know, really got on with the job. Everybody was very dedicated and committed to the work. And with this worldwide positioning, the network was wonderful. Um, it was a global community. Um, you know, we didn't have the computers in those days, um, but there was teletype input, output, there were telephones, then we had fax machines, and people were able to keep in touch. So Pan Am passengers, uh particularly premium passengers, first class and clipper business class. Um, they had the clubs that they could go to, and they had their special contacts within the airline, and uh people had this wonderful sense of confidence when they flew on Pan Am. Pan Am also made a big effort to um advertise and communicate uh not just with the home market, but with their uh overseas markets and uh women. Um they used to show women in the cabin as passengers. Um so that was quite a quite a development um back in the early days. I'm talking about the 70s and the 80s. So uh yes, Pan Am had a universality um above and beyond most other airlines.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

You mentioned when you joined the company in 1986, Pan Am was in the middle of a rebranding. Tell us about what you worked on.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

Well, this was the exciting um part of the job because Pan Am at that time was the launch customer for the Airbus A310 300. Now, this was a very important aircraft. Why? Because it has two engines, and it's less expensive to run two engines over the Atlantic than, let's say, three engines on the Lockheed L 1011 or four engines on the Boeing 747. So a big effort was being put in to um launch the A310300, and that's where we installed the first um new cabin interior scheme and the exterior paint scheme with the jumbo letters, the great big billboard letters that stretched almost from the top of the fuselage down to near the bottom of the fuselage. This came as a great shock to everyone. It was um uh a design idea that had been launched um at Airbus in conjunction with Pan Am. And so um it was trialed. Um we, you know, we flew the aircraft, and reactions certainly varied because the traditionalists um said in many cases that they preferred the original small letters on the side of the aircraft. But when you think about it at an airport, any busy airport, um every time there's a Pan Am aircraft. Took off or landed with its jumbo giant billboard letters, effectively, it was a flying billboard for the airline. And so after the shock had worn off, what happened? Well, all the other airlines started to copy. How often now do you see small letters on the side of an aircraft from a commercial fleet? Virtually all of them have jumbo letters, and that was started by Pan Am.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

For the record, that is my favorite livery.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Ah.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

The Pan Am Globe logo was iconic since its introduction in the 1950s. It's often referred as the blue ball or the blue meatball. It was consistently on the tail until the company went under in the early 1990s. When they were rebranding in the 1980s, was there talk about changing the logo?

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Yes. Pan Am had had different logo displays on their aircraft. And on the tail of some of their early aircraft, they had the letters PAA, actually quite big letters. And another design that they had was a flying wing on the tail. And then there was a design that featured a partial globe. The globe sort of spilled off the sides of the vertical stabilizer, that tail part of the aircraft. And having surveyed all the options and the history, the decision was made to go with the blue ball, which is perfect on that surface, that vertical surface. It fits in beautifully. It shows the curved outline. It shows north, south, east, west for those people who like compass points, and it showed lines of latitude. We're talking Riemannian geometry here, curved surface. Can life ever be a level playing field? The whole planet is a curved surface. And so the blue ball, we worked out how it could be fitted beautifully onto that surface of the vertical stabilizer. And it carried the logo of Pan Am. And that was very widely accepted. And people liked that. I have to say, it took longer for people to get used to the jumbo letters on the side of the aircraft.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Getting back to the jumbo letters, who made the ultimate call to go with that design? And was the new livery well accepted within the Panam executive group?

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Well, the chairman was Mr. Ed Acker. He made that decision and he had a very, very strong sense of design and also a feeling for how the world was moving. And at that time, advertising was sort of coming out of the closet in a way. Instead of being rather polite, deferential, careful, reserved, logical and progressive, we were seeing quite sort of dramatic jumps in the field of advertising. And that blue and white display on the side of the aircraft was something completely new, but incontrovertible. You couldn't get it wrong. Now the design boss was Mr. Philip George, who passed away a couple of years ago, very sadly, and Phil's wife, Gail, a wonderful design team. They looked after Braniff and some Caribbean Airlines. They looked after restaurants, some very famous restaurants and hotels. And it was Phil working in conjunction with Airbus, and then Mr. Acker giving the decisive go-ahead. We then had to figure out how to handle the implementation. Okay, not difficult on a wide body aircraft, but what happens when you look at some of the other aircraft that are smaller, like the DC-9 or the ATR-42? We had to cut special stencils to work out the scalability, the sizing of these jumbo letters for the exterior of aircraft where the fuselage was much smaller. And then, of course, we had to figure out how to carry across this look and this dramatic treatment to all the other aspects of the rebranding program. So, yes, there was there was a lot of work to do, but everybody who got involved could see how the elements were being brought together. And one thing I should mention, Pan Am blue, that colour traditionally was a specially formulated colour, and the formula was held by Boeing and by Pan Am. Now, worldwide, when you had to paint part of a check-in desk or part of a clipper lounge or a city ticket office, you had to get the special formula. Naturally, things varied in terms of the shades of the blue. What we managed to do in 1986, we moved across to the closest colour that was available within a commercial paint company called Pantone. And we selected process blue, which is a standard colour available worldwide. It's as close as can be to the original Pan Am Blue, just a shade sharper and a tiny bit darker to my eyes. But this meant that we achieved great cost savings because we could buy commercial paint, commercially available paint in all parts of the world. Also, we moved away from hand painting on the aircraft exterior to decals, stick on decals, and 3M tape, which of course operating at aviation grade standards. Now we had put sticky decal onto the tail of Concord. I was personally involved. I was up there in the Cherry Picker in 1984. The coat of arms went on to the tail of Concord, and that has a movable rudder. So we had to wrap the bits around the movable rudder, uh, showing the British Airways coat of arms. We knew that those decals could fly successfully, and these days most airlines use decals for their exterior treatments. So it was a very exciting time. And at first, within Pan Am many people said, oh, they felt their tradition was being taken away and not honored. And I could understand why they felt that the past was so important to them. However, what we found from the customer surveys and the uh surveys that looked at uh corporate recognition and retention in memory and recall to memory at the later dates, we found that the new Pan Am logo display had very, very high recognition rate and was doing extremely well. And so that's why we were able to keep going with that new scheme.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

We're going to take a quick break with a Pan Am commercial from 1985 introducing the new branding program.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

While the world has been sleeping, Pan Am people have been working. Working to create a better way to travel to America to give more comfort.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Can you speak a little bit about the changes in the interior when you join Pan Am?

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Yes, well, this is one of my favorite subjects. And uh I have um so many notes and my own working pictures and diagrams. Pan Am was a leader in the field of aircraft interiors way back to um oh the days of the 707, but when the 747 was introduced, One Trip uh designated the upper deck as a customer area, whereas many employees had hoped it would be a crew rest area, but uh that upper deck was used for customers, and um, as most people know, it was a cocktail bar at one time and then dining in the sky. Here was Pan Am with this wonderful background. Uh Pan Am had introduced uh stretch out seats in first class. Pan Am had introduced the first dedicated, fully branded business class cabin in the airline world. And economy class on the 747 was wonderful, a wonderful advance. For example, the seats were 20 inches wide, overhead bins that closed with lids and doors instead of old-style hat racks. The um background was excellent. So, what did we do in uh 1986, 87, 88? We brought in uh a new look and we upgraded first class. Um, Phil George brought in beautiful thick merino, Australian merino sheepskins to cover the central insert panels of the first class seats, the seat back and the seat cushion, and then extendable footrests. They were quite revolutionary at the time. So the passengers could uh stretch out, they could uh recline 60 degrees, and of course the Pan Am luxury service. There was uh dining for your seat as a passenger, but also on the 747s, you could go up to the upper deck for the dining in the sky experience, which was really wonderful. People still talk about that. In business class, we um brought the seats, the old first-class seats from before the days of the um lie extension lie back seats. The earlier seats were made by Weber and they were beautifully contoured. They were sort of curvacious and comfy, people loved them. And we brought all those first-class seats out of first-class cabin and into the clipper business class cabin. So suddenly uh passengers had first-class seats, the earlier ones, while they were sitting in Clipper Business Cabin. And again, this was um a leadership statement. Other airlines had to scramble to catch up. At first, the configuration was eight across, but then Pan Am moved to six abreast, two plus two plus two in business, Clipper Business. So that was um uh a great leadership statement by Pan Am. And we used uh beautiful herringbone wool fabric with leather inserts for the headdressed covers in uh all in shades of deep blue and mid-blue. Now, Economy Class, here we've got the big numbers and the big challenge. Earlier, Pan Am had 12 different fabrics in Economy Class. Can you imagine the cost of the upkeep of 12 different fabrics at all the downline stations for the spares and the reserve storage? So we moved to one fabric, a beautiful silky wool fabric showing a stylized version of the Pan Am Globe. And this, of course, gave immediate cost savings. Also, we moved to one carpet, nose to tail, uh, one curtain fabric, nose to tail, that was 16 ounces per linear yard with lovely vertical stripes, quite a thick fabric. It used to cut out the sound between the cabins. It was good. Um, it insulated the cabins and helped to keep the level of sound down. Uh, one seat belt, nose to tail, black with the Pan Am Globe logo on the seatbelt buckle. And on the 747 fleet, at that time I remember we had 40 aircraft and um we found 40 different decorative bulk treatment. The decorative bulkheads are panels that divide the cabins. So we moved to one decorative bulkhead treatment again to achieve major cost savings. So um this was a very exciting time. We moved very, very fast, and the aircraft that launched the new cabin interior look was the A310300 flying on the Atlantic with its two engines. And of course, this was um in supervised and investigated and scrutinized, criticized, assessed over and over again. And when the Cabin Interior program was approved, uh we then retrofitted all the other aircraft in the Pan Am fleet, of course, with scalability differentials for the small aircraft.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

You mentioned the sheep skin and first class seats. That has a unique connection to aviation history, correct?

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Oh, you're right. Because in the early days of open cockpit flying, how did these intrepid aviators keep going? Because, you know, outside the temperature can be way below freezing. Now, we see pictures of Captain Lindbergh and Beryl Markham, Amelia Earhart, all these great pioneers. And almost always when they're getting into their aircraft, they're wearing those leather jackets and leather helmets. Now, inside the leather helmet, and inside the leather jacket, usually there was a thick sheepskin lining. It is one of the best forms of insulation that anyone could think of. And there's another aspect in terms of fire, smoke, heat release, and toxicity, all the tests, the technical tests that all cabin interior items have to go through. They have to prove that they can meet all the required safety standards. Sheepskin is just brilliant. Um, you can put a match to it and it sort of curls up and looks at you. It doesn't go up like a Roman candle in flames, whereas so many other um items, you know, the nylon, plastic, um, synthetic elements are flammable and highly dangerous. So there was sheepskin, the wonderful insulation, um, but also a great, great safety um device for these early intrepid aviators.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Was it difficult to clean?

SPEAKER_03 39:19

Yes, because it was so thick and dense. And there was an earlier version of the sheepskin which was rather thin, it stranded, and it was not difficult to clean, but it molted and went bald in one of the um um durability uh trial experiments, um, which we had to run, of course, we had to experiment and test everything. So when we moved to the thick merino sheepskin, and uh as I said, uh these came from Australia, and we used to say, Oh, maybe these sheep were reared on Australian lager because this pelt is so solid and strong. Yes, but then how do you clean it? Don't forget, um there might be bits of peanuts or chewing gum or bits of um newspaper, whatever. And so we had to get new vacuum cleaners for the maintenance departments at the base and at the downline stations. They needed more powerful vacuum cleaners to get these sheepskin pelts um squeaky clean. And so, okay, we could say that was a downside. However, the passengers loved the sheepskin uh seat covers. So everyone felt yes, it's worthwhile.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

So Paniam did a complete overhaul of all three classes of service. Uh, that sounds like a massive undertaking.

SPEAKER_03 40:58

It is doable, particularly when you have uh consistency and commonality, for example, one carpet running nose to tail instead of three separate carpets, one curtain fabric, one seat belt, one design scheme for the vertical surfaces, the rear facing front panels, the front facing rear panels, lavatories and galley treatments. You see, if you uh manage to bring within scope a curtain fabric that's going to work efficiently in all classes, then you're not dealing with three separate curtains. So I think that we were able to move ahead pretty rapidly with uh this particular strategy for handling the three classes. And of course, you get the links between the classes. And on the design side for corporate literature, for example, menu covers, many airlines had in-flight print magazines in those days. Now many airlines are moving to digital in-flight magazines, but still, you've got a motion sickness bag, you've got the safety card, you've probably got marketing messages from the airline in the seat literature pockets. When you're dealing with all classes of service at the same time, you can achieve economy of scale, particularly on design, print, processing, and these product features. And that was one of the great benefits of handling all classes at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

You worked for a Panam during a tumultuous period in the company's history, a period of financial difficulty, selling of many assets, terrorist attacks. How did all of this affect your work?

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Well, uh Pan Am was a brilliant airline, totally resilient. And the Lockerbie terrorist attack was the most horrifying thing that anyone could imagine. Uh, we're talking about the 21st of December 1988, when we were actually making great progress with the rebranding and upgrade program. This was devastating for absolutely everyone. But my I have very strong memories of people digging in to the work, determined to keep going, even though uh we had the tragedy all around us. And a great number of individuals, including Linda Freyr, the chair of the Han Am Museum Foundation, actually moved across to helping to manage the aftermath of the Lockabee disaster. So many of us took on extra tasks to cover for those individuals. Who were working on the Lockerbie program. What we found after Lockerbie was that other airlines were starting to catch up with Pan Am. Again, Pan Am had been the style leader. And things were very difficult. Assets were being sold. And of course, employees were unsure of their status. And it was a very worrying time across the airline.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

There's still much interest in Pan Yam from people around the world. What message do you have for people, especially younger people, on why Pan Am history should be important to them?

SPEAKER_03 44:43

Well, you're right. The Pan Am travel bags, Pan Am keyring logo, Pan Am hats, they're recognized everywhere. It's wonderful. I have some of these uh marketing items from my own personal collection, um, way back, of course. And I love using my Pan Am cabin bag. That's how I carry my files when I go to meetings, and I still get people pointing, saying, oh, Pan Am. So, yes, we are fortunate because we have this wonderful legacy, and Pan Am is still an inspiration to everyone in the aviation business, but beyond, of course, Pan Am with its worldwide network, it was the first airline to circumnavigate the world with a commercial aircraft. There's this amazing background set the town, uh, set the scene for the air transport networks and systems that we all take for granted these days. So there's Pan Am in this amazing position of giving us a legacy, an inspiration, and I think it'll just go on forever, particularly with the efforts of organizations like the Pan Am Museum Foundation, and then there are other Pan Am Museums, Berlin, for instance, Miami, where they have Pan Am collections, and restaurants that model themselves on Pan Am, and then the history books. So I think that we're all going to treasure, in my case, personal memories, but we will all treasure, and the forthcoming generations will treasure the legacy and inspiration provided by Pan Am across the aviation world.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Excellent. Well, thank you very much for your time. It's been a great pleasure, and thank you for your support.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

Well, thank you, Tom. I think it's wonderful that uh you're organizing these um Pan Am podcast programs because this is going to be something splendid for people going forward, and they'll be able to pass them on to others. And as I say, we're not just talking about people who are active in the aviation sector, we're talking about people who were customers and who are customers of the airlines these days. Pan Am is our glorious legacy.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York, where you can explore the rich history of the aircrafts and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum, check out our website at www.thepan Amuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. As was once a tagline in one of our commercials, we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Pan Am Museum.org. And with that, we're going to close out this episode with a Pan Am song that many of you have requested. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Am.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Experience knowing what to do. We've done it all before. Over and over and over.