Pan Am , ABC another series with a 1960 ties backdrop

Ah, Pan American in the old days when the Boys flew the planes and the Girls served the drinks. Stews had to be single and could only work until they were in their mid 30's. it was THE airline to fly for in the old days.

to just get an interview as a pilot for them when I got out of the Navy in 1972, you had to have BOTH an engineers AND navigators license along with an ATP pilots license. also had to speak a foreign language. they, along with Braniff, OWNED South America. they re-built european aviation after WW!!.

you ever want to learn the early history of PanAm, there is a great old movie "China Clipper" that's on TCM every so often, usually during a Hunphrey Bogart marathon. they were THE innovators in commercial aviation in the 1930's. in most South American and Pacific Rim countries they flew to, the PanAm station manager had more snap than the American ambassador.

Lockerie was "the final straw" BUT was more a combination of years of piss poor management and govenments with state owned air carriers screwing them. this after PanAm had BUILT most of their operations esp after WW!!.

also after deregulation, they bought National Airlines for a domestic operator (before de-reg, PanAm was prohibited from flying point-to-point in the continental US) which had a strong northeast to Florida system BUT they had a LOT of labor fights between the merged companie's employees and it never really worked out. also, like most "legacy" airlines, their operating costs killed them AND the 1970's "oil shock" hit them really hard.

the real start of their final downfall was when they were SO strapped for cash they sold their Pacific routes (which printed money) to United Airlines in 1985 for only $750 million. PanAm CEO Ed Acker was an IDIOT (see "years of piss poor management"). that son of a bitch killed THREE airlines before he finally got forced out of the business.