SPEAKER_07 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 museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways. 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 Panamuseum.org. Again, our website is the Pan Amuseum.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. 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. As of this recording, the podcast has been downloaded over 20,000 times in 96 countries since our first episode went live in August of 2021. If you like this program, consider a tax-deductible donation to the Pan Am Museum Foundation. There's a link in the episode description, and help spread the word about the Pan Am podcast by sharing the program on your social media networks and telling your family and friends. Again, our sincerest thanks for listening and your support of the Pan Am Museum. In this episode, we will be exploring another innovation of the early 1960s, Pan Am's worldwide reservation and communication system called Panamac. Then we will be joined by Julia Cook, the author of the best-selling book Come Fly the World, which was recently nominated for the Goodreads Best Books 2021 Choice Awards. But first, Panamac, Pan Am's revolutionary worldwide computer system developed in partnership with International Business Machines, also known as IBM. Let's start with a news clip from British Pathay from 1962 announcing Panamac.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

In the new and changing world of jet travel, the speed in getting there will be matched by unprecedented speed and accuracy in flight booking. A worldwide electronic reservations and communications system will link 114 cities on six continents with a data processing center located in the new Pan American building under construction in New York City. In the uncompleted fourth floor room where the computer system will be installed, Pan M president Warren T. Tripp and Thomas J. Watson Jr., board chairman of IBM, sign the contract for the multi-million dollar installation. Airline personnel almost anywhere in the free world will maintain two-way contact with powerful twin computers which retain necessary information on magnetic disk files. At telegraph speed, the electronic clearing house will book and confirm seats on flights, provide reservation for air cargo, and handle other specific requirements. Service for the traveling public to the globe girdling tempo of the jet age.

SPEAKER_07 4:27

Even though Panamac was a revolutionary innovation, at the dawn of the information age, linking hundreds of computers throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Caribbean for instant data sharing on aircraft seat availability, reservations, and hotel bookings, Pan American was not the first airline to computerize and automate its reservation system. In 1946, American Airlines made computer history as the first airline to use an experimental computerized booking system with temporary storage based on a magnetic drum data storage device developed by the Teleregister Company. Extensive testing and operations were limited to select offices, with the Boston Reservation Office being the first. Magnetic drum memory is considered to be the precursor to the hard disk drive or hard drive, which would later be introduced by IBM in 1956. The hard disk drive would become the dominant storage device for computing beginning in the early 1960s through to the present. However, today, solid state drives, most of which use flash memory, are increasingly more popular and replacing hard drives in new devices. American Airlines' first attempt was a success, but limited. However, it laid a strong foundation for further innovation in computerized reservations and business computing. The original system consisted of a single magnetic drum, and each memory location held the number of seats left on a particular flight. Computer operators could access information simultaneously, so the ticket agents could be told via phone if a seat was available. On the downside, a staff member was needed at each end of the line, and processing the ticket took considerable effort and filing. Throughout the 1950s, the technology Teller Register developed for American Airlines was adapted and utilized by other airlines, including Pan American, TWA, Braniff, National, Northeast, and Western. But in order for a reservation system to work in the future, with the rapid expansion of commercial airlines and the dawn of the jet age fast approaching, something much more highly automated and advanced would be needed. Even after seeing the short-term successes with the tele register system in the early 1950s, airlines were frustrated by the slowness of the system, and it eventually proved to be inadequate for the rapid pace of commercial aviation. C.R. Smith, the legendary CEO of American Airlines, began discussions with IBM's Thomas Watson in 1953 on the next generation of computers to meet the growing needs of the airline industry. IBM had already been working with the United States Air Force on a project called Semi-Automatic Ground Environment Project, or Sage for short. Sage used a series of large computers to coordinate the message flow of incoming enemy aircraft and missiles from radar sites to interceptors, dramatically reducing the time needed to direct an attack on an incoming bomber. The system used teleprinter machines located around the world to feed information into the system, which then sent orders back to teleprinters located at the fighter bases. It was one of the first online systems. The partnership between American Airlines and IBM would culminate in a computer system project called Semi-Automated Business Reservations Environment, known by the acronym SABR. The system went online in 1961 at the American Airlines Hartford office. It would take about 45 minutes for the old teleregister system to completely process a reservation. The new Sabre system could process the same reservation in three seconds. At the same time, Pan American World Airways was also working with IBM to develop a new computer system, not only for traditional airline reservations like American Airlines, but a system that provided instant worldwide communications with Pan Am offices, while also handling hotel reservations, booking connecting flights on other airlines, and internal corporate processes and global communications. The hardware used was a customized IBM 7080 data processing system and a customized IBM 1006 terminal interchange as part of the network system. Using teleprocessors networked to the computing center, agents could access Pan Am flight information and book reservations almost instantly. The massive and bulky Panamac hardware took up all of the fourth floor of the Pan Am building in New York and weighed almost nine tons. The initial cost of Panamac, not including maintenance and future upgrades? Over $23 million. That's almost $209 million, calculated with today's inflation rate. Let's take a listen to a 1962 Pan Am film called Across the World in Three Seconds, Promoting Panamac.

SPEAKER_05 9:51

Flying to far-off places in this jet age is simplicity itself, whether it be the Far East or any other part of the world. But communications, recording the comings and goings of millions crossing the national frontiers of the world, must be maintained. Such records must be faster than the jet age which spawned them. They must be readily available around the world. They must be sure, they must be precise. Once again, the pressure for innovation and advancement has brought forth a solution. Deep in the heart of Pan American's spectacular new building in New York is the home of Panamac, the most extensive IBM communications and reservations network of its kind ever developed. These magnetic disks are whirling faster than the eye can follow. They store information. Their capacity is enormous, and their information is available for processing at a speed of up to 300,000 logical decisions in a single second. It took six years of joint effort by international business machines and Pan American to create Panamac. The result? A system incorporating IBM electronic computers to record vital data on every single flight of a Pan Am Clipper all over the world. It will link 114 cities on six continents with the Electronic Computing Center in New York. What does it all add up to? Communications across the world in three seconds. Let's say France, for instance.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

Hello? An American? Oh good. Uh, Monsieur Murat here, Antoine Murat here. I would like a reservation for 115 flight for New York.

SPEAKER_05 11:55

No, my wife. As he is speaking, the reservation clerk is feeding his plans into the system from Paris, and thence by direct electronic link to New York. In New York, they are assimilated, checked against seat availabilities for the flight he has requested. And automatically the word flashes back to Paris, where the information goes on instantaneous display. Monsieur Mourin does not know it yet, but he's already cleared as far as New York.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

Yes? Yes, I would like very much. Could you have the earliest as possible reservation for Caracas? For two years.

SPEAKER_05 12:38

Further, Panama's Far Flood system is already at work on the second leg of his journey. The information is fed in, flashed once again to New York, assimilated and evaluated against seat availabilities on the first available flight to Caracas. And oh yes, here's something additional from Paris.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

And a reservation for two at the hotel Tamanaco.

SPEAKER_05 13:04

Yes. The hotel space is available. Now, Monsieur Murat's reservations have been made, and this conversation is virtually over. Monsieur Murat's travel plans have been completed and confirmed in one brief phone call. Thank you. Thank you very much. The speed of electronic communications is obvious. However, its full capacity is not. For instance, one might very well ask, can it make logical choices? My name is Yelmer Wyatt. I have a reservation on flight 100 to London. I would like to change that to flight two, departing later that same night. Uh-oh. Here's an error. The agent heard that name as Harold White. His name is really Elmer Wyatt. Spelled W-Y-A-T-T. Now let's see how Panamax handles this perfectly understandable human error.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Mr. White? We have no Harold White. Oh, Wyatt. Yes, you were, Brooke. And just one moment, please. Yes, space is available for flight two to London.

SPEAKER_05 14:33

Now we know that Panamac has incredible speed and that it can make logical decisions.

SPEAKER_07 14:40

The system took another two years to perfect, and over 400 personnel across the globe were trained before the system went fully operational on November 23rd, 1964. Panamac linked hundreds of agencies throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean with the Pan Am Computing Center in New York City. Travel agencies and other commercial accounts also had direct access to Panamac. The IBM Design Network was only the second real-time network to be installed for high-speed computing and communication in the airline industry. The first network system developed for real-time airline reservations was American Airlines Sabre, developed by IBM and implemented in 1961 on an IBM 7090 system. Although not the first, Panamac pushed the envelope even further in advancing business computing technologies and instant global communications. Its significance in computer history is clear as one of the original Panamac IBM 1003 teleprocessor agent sets is on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Here's another clip from the PanamaCotional film.

SPEAKER_05 16:04

What would only yesterday have seemed unbelievable will be happening before your eyes. Panama's application to air cargo also offers great advantages. Increased speed in processing cargo reservations will expedite the already rapid transfer of goods by clipper cargo. Speed of handling permits reduced inventories abroad, increases turnover, steps up sales opportunities, inevitably results in savings through mass volume. But still, a system is only as good as the people behind it. Pan American and IBM are the people behind Panamac. Their training, their experience, these are the qualities of leadership. And with Panamac, air transport takes another giant step forward.

SPEAKER_07 17:15

American Airlines Sabre System continued being a fierce competitor to Panamac. In addition, for many, if not most Pan Amployees, Panamac was their first experience in working on a computer system and easily predated anyone's experience with a personal computer. When recruited, applicants were required to go through a two-week training period and then pass an extensive proficiency test before being considered fully qualified and hired. The Panamac Computer Language was a unique amalgamation of symbols, numbers, codes, and three-letter city designations. The 1970s was a difficult decade for Pan Am from a financial standpoint, with the oil crisis, reduced travel bookings due to terrorism concerns, and a growing amount of debt due to the purchase of a new fleet of 747 jumbo jets that had many engine and structural problems in the first years of service. And Pan Am was still at a severe disadvantage to other airlines due to the inflexibility of government regulations, preventing an establishment of a domestic network and competitive growth. Because of these shortcomings, Pan Am was not in a strong financial position to invest in substantial upgrades in Panamac and started to lose ground in keeping up with American Airlines Sabre System. Recognizing this, Pan Am launched a new and more powerful system called Panamac 2 in 1974. This new network, again in partnership with IBM, could display 185,000 pages of reference data, including car rental and hotel availability across the globe. Agents could book and confirm directly with numerous outside companies. By the early 1980s, Pan Am lacked the financial resources to adequately invest in the rapidly evolving area of computer technology and fell behind. At the same time, American Airlines was making a fortune by leasing out the more advanced and consistently upgraded Sabre system to other airlines. In fact, many bookings on Panamac originated from travel agencies using Sabre. Many Pan Amployees that worked in reservations in the 1980s will tell you that American Airlines data system was the envy of every airline as it was so well developed with a solid central core that unified and connected to all its subsystems. By the late 1980s, Pan Am was seriously considering transitioning to Sabre and even sent Pan Amployees to Texas for training and to begin the process. In the end, the airline, still recovering from a mounting corporate death spiral of debt and a poor economy, decided to cancel the plans to move to American Airlines Sabre and stay with Panamac for purely financial reasons. Pan Am allocated resources to technology with the desperate hope of mapping out a trajectory to be more competitive in the future while at the same time building the airline's frequent flyer program within Panamac, powered by IBM 6 platform with the capabilities of displaying multiple applications at once. However, all was futile as Pan American World Airways went out of business at the end of 1991. Sabre would continue to be the premier airline reservation system throughout the 1990s. In 1995, the Sabre Corporation, a subsidiary of AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, co-created the website Travelocity with Worldview Systems Corporation. Travelocity's popularity continued to grow throughout the late 1990s as an online travel website, and in 1999 entered into a lucrative partnership with America Online, also known as AOL. In 2000, AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, spun off Sabre into an independent company. In January 2015, Travelocity was sold by Sabre to Expedia for $208 million. Today, Sabre is a billion dollar publicly traded company headquartered in South Lake, Texas. The company is the largest global distribution systems provider for airbookings in North America and beyond. If you've ever booked a flight, chances are almost certain. Certain that Sabre system was used to process your ticket. Even though Sabre touches almost all aspects of your travel today, most people have never heard of the company or know its history. Let's take a listen to a two and a half minute clip from the Sabre Corporation and then on to our interview with Julia Cook.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

When we look back on our history, we see a company with a rich heritage.

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And we've helped change the world in so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

We've helped make the world more accessible.

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We've made it faster and slower.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

We've even made it smaller. When we look forward, we see a world of possibilities.

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A world that depends on us every single day.

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For innovation, leadership, and excellence in everything we do.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Because when 20,000 hotels trust their guests to us, and 225 airlines trust their passengers to us, we're doing something essential.

SPEAKER_05 23:12

When we're building software systems for one of the world's most important industries, an industry that touches millions of people each day.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

We're doing something remarkable.

SPEAKER_05 23:22

When we're providing flight plans to thousands of pilots around the globe, that's when we know we're doing something absolutely critical.

SPEAKER_04 23:31

And because we're home to more than 9,000 of the most talented minds in engineering, computer science, and technology, we're clearly doing something right.

SPEAKER_05 23:43

We're stable. We are takeoff and landing.

SPEAKER_06 23:47

We're on and off.

SPEAKER_05 23:50

We are hello and goodbye.

SPEAKER_06 23:52

We're connected. We're mobile.

SPEAKER_05 23:55

We're personalized in millions of indispensable ways every single day.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

We are how the world works and great.

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Helping customers succeed.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Moving technology forward never standing still.

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Because we're savored.

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And we are thinkers, leaders, achievers, proud of our history, dedicated to our customers. Committed to innovation.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

We're savored.

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We are savored.

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And we're ready to build a great future.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Together.

SPEAKER_07 25:07

Julia brings to light the stories of incredible women and their unseen role in the Vietnam War as Pan Am transported young American soldiers into combat and added flights to carry exhausted troops to brief RR trips. And with Operation Babylift, the dramatic evacuation of 2,000 children during the fall of Saigon. Come Fly the World is available at the museum's online store. There is a link to purchase this book in the episode description. Julia is also the author of the book The Other Side of Paradise: Life in the New Cuba. The daughter of a former Pan Am executive, Julia grew up in the Pan Am family and currently lives in Vermont with her family. Welcome to the Pan Am podcast, Julia. Hi, Tom. So I understand that you have a personal connection to Pan Am. Why don't you take us back to the beginning?

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Sure, yeah. So the beginning of my history with Pan Am would be um birth. My dad worked for Pan Am. He was an attorney uh in the Pan Am building in New York when I was born. It's part of the reason why they waited until they were a little older to have me and my sister. Um my parents were having such a good time traveling that they um having kids kind of seemed like the least important thing when it was compared to, you know, hiking in Nepal or long weekends in Rome. Yeah, totally. Um, so that's that that's my personal history with Pan Am. But Pan Am was really more of just a part of my um upbringing and not really something that I was thinking about from an intellectual perspective. Although I um can openly, you know, I'm very aware of how much um being an airline brat was a part of what made me uh who I am professionally, which is a travel writer and um journalist. Uh I grew up traveling all the time and reading a lot on airplanes and um listening to the languages of different countries and kind of eavesdropping on um other passengers' conversations in a plane and trying to understand um how different people were doing things differently than the way that I was raised doing them all around the world. So that very much became a part of um my intellectual interests. But Pan Am as um an entity to you know think about from an intellectual perspective was not really part of what I was um doing. Uh so I came at the story of my book, which is about the the international flight attendants of Pan Am, um, a total accident, uh, which was that I was um working as a travel writer in New York and writing a lot about art and architecture also. And I really, really wanted to go to the TWA terminal um at JFK. Have you ever been there?

SPEAKER_07 27:51

Oh my God, it's awesome. Uh, if any of our listeners are ever in New York City, the TWA, they've turned it into a hotel. I wish they would have done the same with the Pan Am Worldport, but it's like walking into a time warp. And I am a huge fan of Arrow Sarinen and his architecture and designs. And that place, every time I walk in, it is just breathtaking.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Exactly. Exactly. And so before it was a hotel, it was closed to the public. It was really only open for special events and you needed an invitation to get in. And so they they had these um historical tours occasionally with New York Architecture Week. And then um I saw at some point via the Pan Am Historical Foundation that that um the Pan Am Historical Foundation was doing an event there um with some state entity of New York City, and they were hosting an event to commemorate the 50th landing of the Beatles in New York. So I went to this like Beatles fan club type event uh at the terminal, really just because I wanted to see it, because I was also a big fan of Ira Sarinen's work. And so I went to this event and I wound up talking to two former stewardesses the whole time. Um, and I was just completely captivated by them. I thought they were the most interesting women I'd ever met. Um, they were just so uh sophisticated and savvy, and they really were incredibly smart. Um, the way that they talked about exploring the globe with this level of, you know, cool, confident authority was just so alluring to me. Um, and what was more impressive was the way that they talked about events of world history with this sense of real intimacy, as if they had been, you know, having tea with the prime ministers and diplomats and spies that were actually shaping these events of world history. Um, and I wanted to know absolutely everything about these two women.

SPEAKER_07 29:41

So you decided at that event to write this book?

SPEAKER_00 29:45

You know, it wasn't quite that um immediate of a decision to write a book. I just definitely knew that I wanted to know all about them. And so I started going to um luncheons that they were having and and events that the Pan Am Historical Foundation was hosting, um, and and some of their social events. This this group of women um is incredibly well connected. Um, they they spent a lot of time with each other and they started letting me just kind of crash their parties. And I had such a good time with them and found them the more I learned, the more I wanted to know about how those attitudes had um had been formed. Uh, and so that was when over the course of time, spending more time with them, I realized that that it definitely had to be a book.

SPEAKER_07 30:26

What were some of the most inspiring stories that stand out to you in looking at your research and your conversations?

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Well, a couple of them um were just, you know, the the scenes that stand out most to me are are many of the scenes that made it into my book. Of course, um one of the most uh tragic and um really consequential scenes was is forms the climax of the book, which is the 1975 Operation Baby Lift, um airlift of of orphans and and refugees out of Saigon, which you know has has a lot of resonance today as we're watching um civilian airlines evacuate, um, help in the evacuation of Kabul. Um so that that is an incredibly impactful scene. But there were also scenes of real glamour and um um and you know intrigue. One of the things that that um I really wanted to capture in my book uh was the this toggling between the really glamorous scenes of the jet age and then these really gritty, consequential, really difficult scenes as well. So, you know, I heard stories about going to Moscow, for example, and being followed by the KGB and playing tricks on the KGB and going to the Bolshoi Ballet. And then I heard stories about um shopping in Rome and uh visiting the flower markets of Bangkok and and um and you know, the everyone's favorite hotel, which was the Intercontinental in Beirut. And then I heard these stories about flying American soldiers into combat in Vietnam. And that texture of that difference um I found really remarkable. And I thought it was really incredible women who were able to do both of those things and embody both the glamour and the grit.

SPEAKER_07 32:10

We're gonna take a quick break with a Pan Am commercial from 1969 that Julia mentions in her book.

SPEAKER_04 32:17

Why don't you join the country club? Why don't you join the country club? Why don't you join the country club? Panam can fly to over 80 countries from one end of the world to the other. Big countries, small countries, old countries, new countries. And it doesn't matter who you are, or where you come from, or where you're going. The world's most experienced airline has room for everybody under the sun.

SPEAKER_07 33:15

Welcome back to our interview with Julia Cook, author of the book Come Fly the World. Thinking back to some previous guests that I've been fortunate enough to talk with since we started this program, I get a sense from Pan Amers of their disgust by the way they saw the other airlines treating their flight attendants and how those airline uniforms sexualized them. I'm thinking specifically of those late 1960s and early 1970s commercials for national airlines that make me absolutely cringe. In my opinion, the Pan Am uniforms were very sophisticated with a great sense of style, class, and confidence. How was Pan Am different than some of the other airlines that subscribed to the notion that sex sells?

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Yeah, so your question makes me think of two things. First of all, um the yeah, yeah, you're totally right that the the uniforms that Pan Am had its stewardesses wearing in the 60s and 70s was very different in tone uh to the the uniforms that uh airlines like RANF or Southwest or um National uh put its their stewardesses in, which were pretty racy. You know, they they were wearing hot pants and leotards, and they were really taking advantage of um, you know, this new loosening in uh sexual mores of the sexual revolution in the United States. Um but Pan Am couldn't really do that because, you know, the sexual revolution was not happening in the same way in um, for example, Beirut or Bangkok or New Delhi. Um so their stewardesses really had to be um walking a much, a much finer line um of professionalism. Uh and I think the women that I talked to really appreciated that. You know, they they really felt like their uniforms were, you know, they were still designed by the excellent couturiers of the day. Um, they still felt very sophisticated, but they were professional. They were, they were a little more starchy. They followed the lines of Madison Avenue instead of, you know, Mary Quant. Um so then the other thing uh that that I'm thinking about is that, you know, you you you mentioned that these women were um kind of pigeonholed as being, you know, just sexy, but really they were very sophisticated. They were also incredibly smart and really quite ambitious. And that was one of the things that I found um really wonderful and and impressive. And then um one of the things that I wanted to write about in my book, basically the reason why I wanted to write my book, really, um, was that you know, these a lot is made of the sexist requirements of the job uh that we all know that, you know, that on Pan Am, women were required to fit very specific um height and weight requirements. And it wasn't just Pan Am, it was all sorts of all the airlines in the US at that time in the 60s. Uh they subjected their um applicants to really excruciatingly detailed um physical uh assessments of their you know stereotypical white femininity beauty. Um so these women were really beautiful um and and well put together and sophisticated and fit. And they were, you know, uh they were not able to be married when they were hired, and they were able to be fired uh when they if they were to get married. So it wasn't it was openly sexist. Um but at the same time, the requirements on Pan Am at least were also really rigid as far as um the intellectualism and you know the smarts of its women. Uh women had to be able to speak two languages, they had to have some college education, um, and they had to really be able to think really fast on their feet. Um the in interviews, they were also really um assessed for their ability to problem solve quickly. Um, and so, you know, the result was that these women were a very unique combination of um uh you know willingness to adhere to these uh pretty feminine beauty norms uh standard to of the era. And they were also really pretty ambitious and smart and really interesting people who were really determined to get out into the world. Um, there's a statistic that I found that a number of reviewers have really picked up on, um, which is that uh in the 60s, 10% of Pan Am's stewardesses had gone to graduate school. This was in an era in which only six to eight percent of Americans had gone to college. Women, I mean, uh six to eight percent of American women. So, you know, that that really speaks to how select these women were. So they had to have a language proficiency in something other than English. And, you know, the the college uh requirement changed a couple of times. So there was an era in which they had to have a college degree, um, but at other times it was just a couple of years of college. Um, but but but having some college education was was necessary.

SPEAKER_07 37:54

The eras covered in your book, the 1960s and 1970s, these were times of great social change. Thinking of the Vietnam War, civil rights, and the women's equality movement. Yet Pan Am already had this built-in cultural diversity as it employed people from all over the world from various backgrounds and cultures. Is there anything you'd like to mention regarding Pan Am?

SPEAKER_00 38:22

You are completely correct to say that over the course of time, especially the court the period that I was looking at, the late 60s and early 70s, um the airline cruise changed very, very drastically. And that was because um the women who uh wanted to be working for Pan Am included um African-American women and uh women of color in the US and women from other countries, and especially in the US, the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, um opened the door uh for women of color to be applying for and getting jobs on airlines. So on Pan Am, uh the airline was pretty quickly integrated over the course of the late 60s and early 70s, um, thanks to that legislation.

SPEAKER_07 39:06

In your opinion, what is it about Pan Am that still interests people from all around the world?

SPEAKER_00 39:13

So I think that Pan Am has this level of glamour um in part because it is so uh intertwined with um this moment in time. So some of it just comes from the fact that um there was this 360-degree glamour. Um there was uh Pan Am was really invested in um uh the customer service and and appearance. It had hired the best architects to build um its buildings and and and construct um its its hotels via the Intercontinental Hotel brand that it owned. Um it hired the best mid-century modern designers, um, it hired the best couturiers to uh make design the uniforms of its stewardesses. Um so it and it was really invested in that. It also put a lot of effort into everything from the menus uh and the meals on the airplanes to um something called the Classroom Clipper, right? It it um published a basically a travel magazine for children and distributed that magazine to American schools um, you know, as a way of getting kids excited about going to foreign countries and hopefully then going back home and asking mommy and daddy to save up and take them to someplace exciting on Pan Am. So the glamour, they put a lot of effort into um associating the brand of Pan Am with um with the international, with with the sense that the world outside of the US was waiting. Um and so that was a really powerful thing. And in the post-war era um in particular, uh anything international was really considered to be really exciting. Think about the World's Fair, think about um the International House of Pancakes and James Bond. Everything international carried this kind of waft of glamour. And Pan Am was really um worked hard to make itself um a part of that glamour as well. And you know, another thing that really contributes to why Pan Am as a brand is so pervasive even today is that the airline was really an airline of firsts. It was um associated with both cultural and technical firsts. Um in the 20s, it was the first American airline to operate permanent international flights, um, to use radio, to serve meals in the air. In the 30s, it was the first to operate scheduled transatlantic passenger service. Um, in the 40s, it was the first to run around-the-world flight to provide tourist class service outside of the US. And that list just goes on and on and on. Um, it was also the first to, you know, as I mentioned at the beginning of this interview, that uh to bring the Beatles to the US. You know, it uh it ushered in uh the British invasion. Um it was it was the airline that brought celebrities um from outside of the US into the country and from inside of the US to uh other countries abroad. It brought royalty and diplomats and and foreign um you know prime ministers to the US. So uh it that that association with the new and exciting and um uh the the firsts, it's really powerful.

SPEAKER_07 42:14

What would you like modern readers of your book to walk away with?

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Um so two things. I think first and foremost, I hope readers walk away with a real um understanding of just how revolutionary um the stewardesses on any airline of the 60s and 70s really were. These were women who um really prioritized their curiosity about different places and different kinds of people and and and themselves, you know, their desire to see who they could be in different places and allow themselves space. Um it was revolutionary uh for the era. Uh, and it was, it was really, it it really did um open the way for women of my generation. I'm in my late 30s now, um, and I grew up always being able to travel as a woman on my own or with other women or or you know, um unchaperoned. That was not something that was anywhere near as common in the 50s um and early 60s. And this group of women really um propelled the the changes that now um I am enjoying.

SPEAKER_07 43:19

Well, thank you for your time, Julia. I really appreciate you coming on the program.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Thanks so much for having me, Tom. It's been great.

SPEAKER_07 43:33

Pan Am was a pioneer in air travel and still stands as one of the most iconic and innovative airlines in aviation history. 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.thepanmuseum.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. You can also support the museum by shopping on our online store for all things Pan Am accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, models, and posters. 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 very peculiar song from the 1969 for once in a lifetime campaign that is sung in Japanese, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, as flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Ambition.