Does anyone know if the new Pan Am is still flying? If they are will this airline expand to be one of the great airlines it used to be? It would be great if one of the airlines like JetBlue etc would buy the Pan Am name and grow the airline to its full potential.

Does anyone have any information on the flights that used to operate from the US to Australia, example: Flight Numbers, Aircraft Type, Days of Operation, Destinations in Australia it use to serve? This information would be great.

As of 1984, Pan Am flew nonstop from Sydney to: AKL, LAX, and MEL with 747 and 747SP equipment. Generally, three weekly nonstops to each destination. Also, a weekly 747 nonstop to HNL was offered.


Steve/NewOrleans

The new Pan Am is horrible, it will never be as big or as good as the old Pan Am, its a shame that they are using the name.The Pan Am name should be retired and no longer used

are they flying under the "clipper" callsign?

Back in the 90's a company purchased the logo and name from the then bankrupt Pan AM in court. With that, the name was carried on, but nothing else. (maybe a plane or 2) The new PanAM is based out of PSM with another HQ in Sanford, FL. They have one hanger and fly 727's along with a few other small aircraft, off the top of my head I cant think of what they are. They are operated by Boston-Maine airways and fly to Baltimore, Sanford, san Juan, Santo Domingo, Puta Cana, myrtle beach, St. John, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Groton CT, white planes NY, and Manchester NH. They seem to be doing quite well as they are adding new flights quite often. I think they started service to Chicago a few years back, but I guess it didn't go too well. The thing that cracks me up the most is that they fly a 727-200 from PSM to MHT a couple times a day! I can understand why they do this: maintenance, MHT is rather big, etc..... But the best part is that the tickets for that segment run at 75 USD per person! ITS A 15 MIN. FLIGHT! HA!

I think their website is www.flypanam.com

Cancidas, yes they still are doing the whole "clipper" thing....They will never be what the true Pan Am was. However, I still wish them all the best of luck.

Regards,
Mike

Yes, they are flying the Clipper call sign. Yes they are horrible. I have heard horror stories from some fellow pilots there and at Boston-Maine airways.

Boston-Maine Airlines I believe flys the J31 aircraft to those cities

Its been mentioned here before however, not for a while so, since I have the dubious distinction of working for ALL 3 incarnations of Pan Am, here goes the saga...

As most of us know, the original, Juan T. Trippe's Pan American World Airways, ceased operations on 04-Dec-91. In the mid to late '90s, the name and logo were bought by a group headed by former PA Vice-Chairman (and Eastern Airlines' court-appointed Bankruptcy Trustee) Martin Shugrue. When PA began operations, using A300-B4's, he declared "This is not Wal-Mart, this is Tiffiny's". Within 1 year, PA2 was in deep debt and looking for help.

During that same time frame, ValuJet 592 crashed and the owner of Carnival Air Lines, Micky Arison, was afraid if Carnival (KW) suffered a similar accident, it would reflect negatively on his Carnival Cruise Lines, so he was looking for a buyer for KW. KW bought PA2 and changed the name to Pan Am. Within months of the changeover, PA2 was closed.

A group headed by Guilford Transportation and Tim Mellon (of the Mellon Bank family) bought the name, logo and other assets of PA2 in Bankruptcy Court and began operations as a passenger charter airline, with the headquarters based in PSM and the airline's operations and maintenance based in FLL (KW's old facilities).

When they moved maintenance to SFB and all other operational offices to PSM, the airline lost most of their maintenance and technical personnel. Today, they stand as a sad reminder of what was once agruably, the most storied US airline ever.

The original PA pioneered many of the routes we take for granted today. It linked the world in a way that was never done before. It helped the Allies win the war in the Pacific (by giving the use of their radio navigation system and facilities throughout the South Pacific). The PA Blue Ball is still today one of the most, if not the most recognized airline logo worldwide. In many places in the world, PA was the United States. It was the closest this country would come to having a national airline.

I too wish someone with the vision, the "huevos" and the capital, would remake PA into something that would make it a proud remake of her former self but that does not seem to be feasible. Sadly, the airline Juan T. Trippe built and make great is gone forever but she leaves a great legacy of routes (who can remember flying on PA001 around the world?) and aircraft (the Boeing 344 Flying Boat, the B-707, the B-747 and the 747SP - all aircraft that Boeing built because PA demanded them).

MxCtrlr  
Freight Dogs Anonymous - O.O.T.S.K.  

Today's Pan Am has nothing in common with the late great original. It is privately held by a railroad company (Guilford Transportation) with deep pockets and has a knack for dropping routes as quickly as they start them although lately they seemed to have settled on a few that make money (with the 727s, they fly PSM-SFB-SJU/BQN, and MHT-MYR-SFB) while the J31s operated by Boston-Maine serve many other locations in the Northeast and in the Carribean (see www.flypanam.com).

As for US-Australia, the original Pan Am for most of the eighties used to have the following flights:
PA815 SFO-LAX-SYD-MEL 747SP 3 times a week
PA811 JFK-LAX-HNL-AKL-SYD 747 (3 or 4 times a week)
PA811 JFK-LAX-HNL-SYD-MEL 747 (Once or twice a week)

In the early 70s, they used to have 707s and 747s fly from LAX/HNL with stops in AKL and/or Nadi and/or Pago Pago to SYD/MEL. In addition, they also had 707s from SYD to HKG/Denpasar/Jakarta for a few years

It looks like the 727 has been equipped with winglet's.. pretty cool. does anyone know of other 727's wtih winglets that are in commercial service? I think Trump's has them....

Chris
Likes the looks of three holers

Um, how exactley is the new Pan Am terrible? I've never flown them before and have tickets on them from MHT-SFB next month. Do I have anything to be worried about? Btw, does anyone know how their seating works?

Pan Am isn't really that bad. I'm assuming that most people are saying that without personal knowledge. It is just your basic everyday service. You show up check in and rather than a seat number you get a passenger number. You board by passenger number and pick the seat you want. There are no frills. Just basic service. No doubt it is not the Pan Am of old, but they tickets are cheap and if your in a pinch its not too bad to fly.

IflyORL: So their seating is like WN's?

I do agree with the others though that most of it's route structure sucks.

They've actually improved quite a bit in the last year. Their route structure has been largely stable, and their ontime performance has improved substantially as a result of the additional equipment (UAL 72's).

They are operating a number of flights between Manchester / Pease and Sanford and Myrtle Beach. They are also doing weekend charters out of Boston to the Carribean.

The Pease-Manchester flights are strictly positioning flights. It doesn't make any sense to overnight an aircraft in Manchester when they can fly to Pease in less than 15 minutes, and swap out equipment, etc.

Their costs are low, and they're privately held, so they had the ability to be flexible when the market stunk. That most likely was their saving grace over the past two years.

FlyingDoctorWu,

It looks like the 727 has been equipped with winglet's.. pretty cool. does anyone know of other 727's wtih winglets that are in commercial service

Amerijet Cargo operates a few "Quiet Wing" B-727-200's and I have also seen a few private B-727-100's with winglets and the full Valsan engine mod (JT8D-217's in #1 & #3 and a -17 in the #2 position with the Thrust Reverser removed).

MxCtrlr  
Freight Dogs Anonymous - O.O.T.S.K.  

Looks like Pan Am flies two aircraft with the winglets, N362PA and N364PA. I can't say anything about their service, but I love that they've kept the old livery. Nothing like seeing that plane, especially in person. We were lucky enough to get a Pan Am charter into GFK last December. Wow that plane took my breath away!

View Large View Medium

Photo © Timothy Hannan