Hey Kelsey. In 1991 I was a fueler for Allied Aviation at JFK. On the day they shut down I was actively fueling a Pan Am 727 when the supervisor came screaming over to me in his pickup truck, making the "cut it off" motion by frantically waving his hand under his chin. I immediately dropped the Deadman switch, thinking the fuel must be spilling, or the plane was on fire or something! Turns out that the Delta board had just decided not to make the large payment they had promised to keep Pan Am (which they were in the process of acquiring) flying. At the moment of that decision, Pan Am was rendered completely insolvent and unable to pay its bills. Thus the decision by Allied to stop fueling. The passengers on that flight had to deplane and the flight never took off. A long time ago, but I remember THAT day clearly. R.I.P. Pan Am.
My dad was one of those executives at Pan Am. He was fluent in Mandarin from his time in Air Force intelligence so when Nixon opened up China to trade with the west, Pan Am was the first airline to have service to Beijing with my dad acting as general manager. As his kid, I got treated like a prince wherever we traveled - some of my fondest memories. Thanks for stirring those up in me today, Kelsey. Blue skies!
Nixon did not "open up China to trade with the west." China never stopped trading with the west. Nixon ended the United States' self-imposed isolation from China. Nobody else had ever joined the US in its silly attempt at ignoring the Chinese revolution out of existence.
Cool story bro. “Boy born with a silver spoon enjoys silver spoons”… you should be selling that story to movie executives. Imagine the silver spoons you could buy.
Well done. I was a Pan Am pilot from October 1966 till the end in December of 1991. Not an ounce of regret, and tons of great memories. I would do it all over again.
I flew on a Qantas 747 in 1974 and a Qantas 707 in the same year, the fuselage had to be shortened on the Australian version of the Qantas 707 Vjet because of the short runway in Fiji between Sydney and LA
Wow, you flew to the end! Thank you for all those safe trips. I flew it my one and only time in 1991, so maybe you were my pilot. You and your brethren made flying cool for me, as a poor kid who had a model of a Pan Am 747. I was so excited for my first business trip as a brand new out of uni kid getting to fly with them to NYC. Still wear a tie and vest when I fly today...makes me weird but that first flight, in my business suite...will always stay with me!
There were many factors in Pan Am’s downfall. Fuel prices, the wrong route system (nothing in the U.S. to feed the international routes), and hubris. I flew Pan Am to the Caribbean in 1973, my first and only time on a 707. After the merger with National, I went to the big multi-airline office (opposite Grand Central Station, back then) to buy an emergency ticket from New York to Miami when my grandfather was hospitalized. They said, “we don’t fly from New York to Miami.” I said, “Yes, you do.” We went back & forth with a few other reps, until one of them said, “oh yeah, we picked up that route from National.” I remember thinking, if that’s their mentality, they’re not going to be around much longer.
Yeah, they spent all that money acquiring those domestic routes, then the other US airlines teamed up to get the regulations changed so they could fly internationally. So it was all for nothing and totally screwed Pan Am.
Interesting enough. I was returning to NY from a transportation expo in DC that had a big presentation from Amtrak, one thing they said was they would accept credit cards, used mine to buy a metroliner trip back to NY. A few days later I went to Grand Central to buy a ticket up to Syracuse (It was them or the bus), the Amtrak ticket agent laughed when I took out my credit card, I guess he didn't get the email, oh, sorry, that was b4 email. One of many reasons private railroads didn't succeed in the passenger business. On the metroliner trip I did get to ride up in the engineer's cab (they used MU cars then), interesting but at no point in the ride did we exceed 110 mph. So much for Amerikan HS rail. They still don't go much faster on this route today.
@@roseduste80 That’s not correct. The Airline Deregulation Act (which is often attributed to Ronald Reagan, but was actually promoted and passed by Jimmy Carter) was not the brainchild of the airlines! They had to be dragged kicking & screaming into the age of deregulation; they certainly didn’t cook it up. But some airlines took advantage of the new opportunities, and some didn’t. Pan Am, as you pointed out, bought a whole airline and didn’t know how to coordinate their new network.
Oh ,BOY! Ya think you have an expert in your midst. Well, working in reservations at American had its challenges. Part of it was on the callers and part of it was on us. We booked a passenger to Charleston as requested. Charleston, SC. The passenger wanted to go to Charleston, WV. Who is THAT on? We didn't fly to WV and at NO point in our training were we taught there were MORE than ONE Charleston. Then there was the call I PERSONALLY got from the Phillips family. They gave me the flight info for their REZ. Flight number, city pair, even the times and I could NOT for the life of me find their Rez. After 5 mins of futility, they finally told me their name was spelled Filips. SERIOUSLY?
I have watched many of your videos and enjoyed them all. This one almost brought tears to my eyes. I was extremely fortunate to retire from Delta, after starting with North Central airlines, as 747 Captain. I flew out of JFK and we were in the old Pan Am terminal. Gave me goosebumps walking through there to my flights. It was my dream since I soloed in a J3 a long time ago. It brought back memories. I believe part of Pan Am's demise was that they could not fly between stops in the US. They had to originate in the US and go to another country and visa versa. That was a huge handicap. Keep up the good work. Tom
As an unaccompanied child travelling with Pan Am, I felt so pampered, with the charming stewardesses taking special care of me, I even got to witness the landing in the jump seat of a 747 cockpit several times. I remember that cockpit, no glass cockpit, steam gauges and switches all over the place!
Hah, I had a similar experience on PLL LOT in the 90s. It was an "interactive" experience, but that's all I can say on social media without getting people in trouble :D
I was really young when I flew unaccompanied LAX-JFK. All I remember is them giving me things to do. It reminded me of the highlights magazines that were for some reason only seen in doctor’s office waiting rooms just it was full of pandas.
Lol why were you traveling on a 747 "several times" as an unaccompanied kid? Your parents split and one said deuces and left state? Thats what happened to me anyways.
When I was just 15 I read a book on the design and early production of the 747. This book inspired me so much that I went into aircraft maintenance. I still have my Paul Bunyan insignia on my toolbox all these years later. The story of how the 747 was made is truly a remarkable one. Thank You for the videos. And long live the Queen :)
My father was a mechanical engineer with Boeing and worked on the 727, 747, and SST. He saw the writing on the wall and left before the layoffs started after the SST was cancelled. I remember his many trips to Seattle and Wichita plants (he was based out of the Boeing Vertol office), his constantly bringing work home and working on it late on a big drafting board, and the pride once the jet was unveiled. PanAm was a part of it's success story. Too bad PanAm didn't develop domestic routes. It's a complex story, as not just one thing brought the demise of the airline. Mismanagement certainly was at the forefront.
I feel it when I watch future looking movies like 2001 A Space Odyssey and you see the space plane is Pan Am. There's a tinge of sadness for a bright possible future that never was. Great video, thanks.
@@sirmonkey1985when flying was such an enjoyable experience! People dressed up, were polite, the food was good, it was roomy and comfortable. Even first class is not what flying once was for everyone.
@@reppi8742but many have upper first class or executive that are far beyond... Like Emirates. Very private seating or even cabins. Those tickets are about 25k per person.
@@miller-joel I'm determined to get on one of Lufthansa's Queens before they retire their fleet! I'm over 50 😉 and haven't been able to fly on her yet, so I'm very thankful there's someone out there keeping these beauties flying for the public!! ✈️❤
My dad was a flight engineer for Pan Am - starting on the Boeing 314 flying boats, through becoming the chief check engineer for the DC-6B, and finishing on the DC-8. He retired in 1982 and was one of the lucky ones to leave with a pension. We grew up thinking Pan Am was the only airline - I never flew with another until after the collapse. I'm now a private pilot and miss Pan American, the wolds most experience. airline whenever I think about traveling. Thanks for another terrific video.
Another Pan Am baby here thank you for the great video! My dad was a pilot for Pan Am in the late 1960s and he flew the 747. It might have been a dream for some, but he later said it was like being a bus driver. Not exciting enough I guess so we moved from San Diego to Alaska and he flew for the fish and game there which I guess was his happy place. RIP Kim Bussell🛩✈
I have the same experience about a pilot who describes the profession as a bus driver. I have a friend who trained as an airline pilot. After working for a few years as a pilot, he changed profession to farmer. About his pilot experience, he says it was like working as a bus driver and not fun at all.
A plane could be described as a flying bus. But it is bigger, technically more complex and subject to more elaborate traffic rules. The main difference between a bus driver and pilot becomes apparent when a problem emerges. Where the bus driver just needs to apply the brakes and then call for help, the pilots have to find a solution to get their plane safely onto the ground, for which a lot of knowledge is required.
yah my friend said he would have kept flying if they let him wear jeans,a t shirt,ball cap like we see Kelsey now and then--have another friend who does tour bus all over the usa--he freakin loves it but he is single guy
My father was a captain on PAN AM after National Airlines was bought out. He said PAN AM spent money hand over fist, unnecessarily, which he felt was a huge contributing factor to it going out of business.
Agreed. My father was in management for National and Pan Am’s purchase of National took both airlines down. First thing they did was steal National’s retirement funds and got rid of profitable routes. Corporate greed at its finest.
@@francoistombeElon musk is a horrible business person. But he has his cult followers. He spent $3 billion in all these years and at most has caught a single booster. He promised to be on the Moon by now. Starship isn't even close for a crewed mission to the Moon. It has not launched with cargo weight. It's supposed to take 20 launches for a single manned mission to the Moon. It's a bad design... And we paid for it. He is not the genius you think he is. But his team and his brand is able to get suckers to invest in his company... Which he gives himself more bonuses than the profit the company brings in. How does that work?
I had the privilege of flying on Pam Am Flight number 1 around the world in 1977. Our group chartered for 234 of us who were going to India. JFK to Heathrow, then to Frankfurt, then Tehran and finally Delhi. 33 hours on the plane each way with the stopovers..... Magnificent machine and the Clipper service was excellent. Myself and 2 friends had recently gotten our private pilot's licenses and mentioned it to the flight crew, and the Captain let each of us come up to the flight deck during a stopover and gave us a tour so to speak. Fantastic experience!
@@oldRighty1 Yeah, well...the tsa would not have prevented that. They didn't catch the "shoe b0mber." They fail something like 90% of their own internal audits. They only "catch" your water bottle. Also, the PanAm 103 b0mb was in the cargo hold. A little more rational prevention, and less irrational fear. Security theater is not security.
Yes as a kid then I was fascinated by aviation and Pan Am in particular. Still remember watching PA 1 and PA 2 round the world flights at Tehran Mehrabad airport. 43 years in aviation I still cherrish Pan Am's contributions to Aviation. My last flight on Pan Am was just a few months before the collapse on JFK-LHR-JFK route on 747.
Great video and commentary Capt. Kelsey. I still have great memories of Pan Am. In the seventies I worked for a different airline but traveled many times on Pan Am to Europe and South America, all for free. (thru the employee interline free/discount agreements with other airlines). One time on a flight from Rome to New York the B747-200 was overbooked and I was among a group of about 15 people who could not get on board. At the last minute the ticket agent announced that there was only one seat available in first class and asked "who is travelling alone with no family?" and immediately I raised my hand; by luck I was the only 'lone bird' and a gorgeous stewardess walked me to my seat in first class. What a fabulous experience that was for me, the food, the drinks, the constant attention from the stewardesses. RIP Pan American World Airways.
Both my parents worked for Pan Am in Miami, even back to the seaplane days at Dinner Key. Thank you for this marvelously eloquent piece on "The World's Most Experienced Airline". You are correct - there was and is no ride like the ride on the Queen of the Skies, on the king of the airlines.
PanAm also pioneered the computerized booking, reservation, and ticketing system that we all take for granted these internet days. PAA was probably one of the top three most innovative airlines in history.
Kelsey, that was probably one of the best tellings of that story ever. I've seen documentaries about it and all that, and you told it in all of about 15 minutes. It is truly a sad story of a good company.That was a victim of the time.
@@bradsanders407 That is very true, but that didn't happen until 1978, and by then Pan Am was already bleeding money. That just accelerated their demise. (Then, you had airlines like Braniff that thought deregulation wouldn't last and they spent a ton of money to buy up every route they could to position themselves for post-deregulation. That never occurred, and they went broke too).
Thank you for this one. My dad worked for Pan Am as a mechanic in Honolulu. Yes. That time of flying was something. Very special. We did dress up when ever we went anywhere. And yes. It was the gas prices along with the fact that Pan Am was not able to feed its international, overseas routes because they did not have the right routes withing the US. And I remember my dad telling me that when United purchased the Orient routes, they'd struggle because they're service was not up to par with what the international travelers experienced before and with other international carriers.
Sad day in aviation to be sure. I watched some of the things you talked about at my airline and is now struggling when once on top. On a pleasant note; I was in 3rd grade in Lynwood,WA when my Dad who was working on 747 for LTV took my brother and I to see the second flight of “number 1 747” at Paine Field in Everett,WA. GREAT DAY with my Dad!! He took a 16mm film of it which I still have!!! So glad to have heard they completely restored it! Sad that it retired (except for freighters). Truly a GREAT milestone and innovation in aviation. Thanks for the video history lesson. ❤
Hi Kelsey, I am 81 years old, and I do remember that we flew from Cincinnati to Japan on Pan Am… I was only about 10 or 11, but I do remember having a nice little flight bag with the pan M. logo on the side.
@@margarita8442 Instead they should have given tons of sugar, fructose, glucose, processed food and trans fat like today right? Nobody gave cigarettes to kids ever btw but today’s kids are being poisoned by much much worse things than cigarettes.
Friend of mine was junior at a PanAm regional when the axe dropped. He applied everywhere, but got nothing back except for an interview with a tiny airline in Texas that he'd never heard of. He really didn't want to commute from New York, but he had 2 kids to feed. He's now Top 100 overall seniority at Southwest Airlines.
Same. I hope he’s doing ok. I know right before he got his fourth stripe he was a little down in the dumps for a little bit and his uploads were less frequent. I hope he’s doing better.
I saw both "The Aviator" and "Catch Me If You Can" and loved them both, but I had no idea of what forces ultimately took Pan Am down. It's sad. Thank you so much for making this video. I go by the Flight Path museum at LAX every day to work, and always told myself I should top in to check it out at some point, but never did in all the years I've lived here until July of this year. This year being the first in 28 years that I began to see getting my pilots license as a possible reality instead of shelved as an unattainable dream. The amount of history packed into that building is overwhelming. It hits you when you walk in the door. There's so much attached to each object that you can easily get lost in time. I was talking to a volunteer who used to be a stewardess for Pan Am. She recounted her experiences of how amazing it was, and that it was also hard work. After hearing her stories, I went back to the Pan Am room. It felt more alive than before. I found myself staring at the stewardess and pilot uniforms on display while my imagination got lost in a daydream of what it must have felt like to wear one; of how it must have felt knowing that you were the best. Admittedly, I felt the pang of loss, which confused me. My family has no ties to the airlines (that I know of) other than my late grandpa's job as an aircraft engineer here back in the 50's and 60's. (I think he'd laugh that he took the family up to northern California, and I wound up back at LAX half a century later.) My eyes kept drifting to the pilot uniform, because that's ultimately what I want to do - Fly. I don't know if Pan Am had women pilots (I'd need to look it up), but I would have loved it. What a time it must have been to be a pilot. I really should take that woman up on her offer to volunteer there. My job cut everyone's hours, so I have time now.
Great recap and analysis Kelsey. My dad was with Pan Am for almost 30 years when the shut down. For a period of time, he was with Pan Am and I was with American at ORD. Always enjoyed being able to visit him while we were on the job and had a break. It was a sad day when Pan Am ceased operations. I am still with American but now in DFW. Always enjoyed seeing the Atlas 747’s when I’m at work.
Thank you for this video and all the fond memories it brings me. As a boy growing up in the 50s in West Germany, to fly with Pan Am started as a childhood dream. My first little scale airline model was - PanAm. My first short haul flight was Pan Am (they were the online airline licensed to fly from Wets German American sector to West Berlin). And my first long distance flight (Frankfurt - New York) was with a Pan Am 747.
Nice video. I grew up in the 70's and 80's with my father being a Western Airlines pilot. What a great time to fly back then. Their TV commercials were very popular at the time and they even had a few Hollywood celebrities in their commercials. We were able to fly on stand by passes and I remember having to wear a suit coat and tie as a child due to their policy that we were representing the airline as passengers. Western Airlines ended up merging with Delta in the mid-80's and my father told me about the same issues that you talk about here with the culture changes, etc. He was not a fan of some of Delta's procedures as he felt that Western had better procedures overall. Anyway, I miss those days and I miss Western Airlines.
Growing up in California, I remember the Western TV commercials with the cartoon bird passenger and the cartoon bird flight attendant serving him food and a beverage outside against the tail of the plane. He would say... "Western Airlines...the only way to fly" and then one of the cities Western served would show up on the tail. My siblings and I would always try to guess what that city would be before it appeared. What a great airline and a fun memory.
Loved that history lesson! Since becoming a regular business traveler, I have been more and more interested in all things "flying". This channel has helped fuel that! Thanks for doing what you do here! 👍
What an awesome video, nearly had me in tears. My dad and both my uncles worked for Pan Am for over 40 years at JFK. I also worked for Pan Am for 3 1/2 years. From 1988-1991. Even in 1988 you had to dress up to travel, first class in the 747 was unmatchable to any other airline, even these days.. Pan Am was a family. I was hired on/retained by Delta in 1991 when they took over Pan Am operations at JFK. I went on to work an additional 30 years with Delta. But I'll always be a Pan Am girl. Great video ❤️✈️
1:51 worth noting there is a difference between a float plane and a flying boat. Float planes are regular aircraft with floats strapped to their fixed undercarriages (sometimes they have wheels too) and often extra float supports on the wingtips. Flying boats, by comparison, have boat hulls with wings attached to the top of the hull. These land their hulls directly in the water. Float planes can't usually handle much swell or chop at all on the water (they usually land on lakes or in harbours) and whilst flying boats can manage a bit of a swell they still need relatively calm conditions to land in - imagine if you were trying to land a 747 and the runway kept rising towards you and sinking away from you every few seconds of it's own volition.
Thank you so much for that wonderful video, and all the great background of Pan Am and the 747. Loved it! I’ll never forget when the 747s went into service. I lived near SFO (San Francisco airport), a few miles away, high on a hill. From my bedroom window, I could look down to watch the planes taking off. They looked tiny from my vantage point, but as I said, the airport was literally several miles from my home. I’ll never forget watching the 747s take off. That plane was so huge that, in comparison to the runway, it looked like it was moving very slowly. So slowly, it looked as though it wouldn’t get off the ground. About halfway down the runway, the 747s would tilt dramatically upward, but continue down the runway. Smaller “normal sized”jets would have begun lifting off about 2/3 down the runway, but not the 747s. Those huge planes continued lumbering down the runway, still looking slow, but tilted upward. It was a weird sight to watch! Then, just before reaching the end of the runway, I could see the plane had lifted off the ground. Yay! 😁 It still looked strange in the air though. The regular planes increased altitude at about the same angle they were flying. Those monstrous 747s gained altitude at about the same rate, except still flying tilted, as they were when taking off. Now I know one reason for the extreme tilt of those big planes. There was so much weight in the fuel, tilting upward helped increase lift, so they could get off the ground before they ran out of runway! I wonder how the pilots felt doing that. Tilted upward like that, they could barely see over the nose of the plane, from what I could see. Just WOW!
Excellent video! Growing up in the 70s I was always a Delta guy but a buddy of mine was a Pan Am nut. Now I know what he was talking about. Those 747s, that gorgeous white and blue livery, the Pacific routes...what a great era for av-geeks to have been a part of!
Great story thank you. Nothing to do with Pan Am but in 1990 I flew with my 6 year-old son on an SAA 747 (a twin deck) LDN to JHB. The stewardess got us access to the pilot's cabin, about midnight, flying over the Sahara, total darkness except for occasional camp fires way down below, and starlight. The cabin was so beautifully softly lit, the crew were so relaxed and cool, we didn't want to leave. Unforgettable. Unrepeatable.
Flew a few times in the late '70s and '80s JHB-LIS on SAA and TAP 747s (TAP would pitstop in Kinshasa or Brazzaville). By the '80s, SAA back then could not overfly certain African countries because of sanctions against apartheid and would have to fly nonstop and skirt some countries, which a modified 747 Jumbo could. But I do recall as a teen flying over the Sahara several times, too. Magical.
I was a student in Roswell NM in 1970 when Pan Am was training pilots on the new 747s. Always remember how they looked flying around the area. We used to go out and watch them do touch and go’s. Magnificent planes.
I love this - this is genuine aviation content and I much prefer educational stuff like this over the problematic passenger-type videos. This was a great watch while cuddling with a sleeping newborn :)
You make a lot of the fact Pan Am was founded in 1927, just 24 years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight. Compare Qantas, founded in 1920 - 7 years before Pan Am, and just 17 years after the Wright Brothers - and not in North America, but in the tiny towns of Longreach and Winton, in the remote regions of outback Australia, on the opposite side of the planet, and at a time before aircraft could even fly across the Pacific. You praise Pan Am’s founders, Hap Arnold, Carl Spaatz and John Jouett, who were all United States Army Air Corps officers. Again, compare Qantas’s founders, Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness, who volunteered for service at the outbreak of World War One - in 1914, three years before the US even entered the war - and served as mounted infantrymen in the Australian Light Horse Brigade before transferring to the Australian Flying Corps. They joined with Fergus McMaster, an experienced businessman, to create “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service” - Q.A.N.T.A.S. - which, 33 years after the demise of Pan Am, remains the oldest continuously operating airline in the world. If the achievements of Arnold, Spaatz and Jouett in 1927 were remarkable, in creating an airline which lasted for all of 64 years, the achievements of Fysh, McGinness and McMaster were even more spectacular, in creating an airline which has now been going for 124 years, and shows no signs of disintegration. Then there is the matter of operational safety. It is sometimes said that Qantas planes never crash. That is (unfortunately) not completely true. In its first 31 years, Qantas lost a total of 104 souls across 14 separate incidents, although many of these were sustained during World War II, when the Qantas aircraft were operating on behalf of Allied military forces. But Qantas has not had a single fatal accident since 1951 - 73 years ago, which is longer than Pan Am’s entire existence - and has never lost a jet airliner. By 1951, when Qantas had been operating for 31 years and suffered 104 fatalities, Pan Am has been operating for 80% as long (24 years) but suffered almost 2½ times the number of fatalities (252). In the month of April 1952 alone, Pan Am equaled the all-time total Qantas death-toll in just two accidents. But worse was yet to come: 81 from a crash in December 1963, 63 from a crash in June 1968, 51 from a crash in December 1968, 78 from a crash in July 1973, 96 from a crash in January 1974, 107 from a crash in April 1974, 335 from a crash in March 1977, 145 from a crash in July 1982, and 259 in the Lockerbie terrorist bomb incident of December 1988. So, if anyone wants to maintain the claim that Pan Am is history’s most iconic airline, I suggest they should broaden their horizons.
@@anthonymorris2276 You are absolutely correct. What a wealth of information you have provided. I am an international traveler and demand QANTAS whenever possible. I am based in BKK and commute to SYD and I look forward every time of boarding a QANTAS flight. Love the airline.
Never flew Pan Am, my father was an airline captain in SAS. I grew up in the 1950-and 60 - SAS was quite like Pan AM - luxury all the way through - The Summer before I started at University, I worked as a dishwasher at SAS catering, I stod at a conveyer belt - and sorted cups an bowl into metal net baskets, that where sent into the dishwashing machine. You could tell the level at luxury of the airline, which containers you were working on. Pan AM's were always good - they always had 2 small chocolate sweets on their trays, not everyone ate them, my position on the belt was the first - I got all the ones that were left !! 20 years later I flew to New York on a charter airline (I don't remember the name) But it was a 747 and the seatbelts had Pan Am stamped into them ! The company had gone !
You may have known my Father, Viggo Hansen who ran SAS Catering in North America and who was the “SAS Master Chef” who showed up in various SAS ads in the ‘50s and ‘60s. That’s assuming you worked in the flight kitchen at JFK (originally in hangar 2 then hangar 18 and, later at Marriott in building 370) I worked for Marriott catering during the summers of ‘71-75.
Cool stories, both. In the late 60s and 70s, we flew a lot between Norway and New York’s JFK. It was usually SAS, but on at least two occasions we flew Pan Am 747 between Copenhagen and JFK. Who knows, both of you probably prepared some of the treats for us flying kids! ❤
Pan am used to fly into Prestwick, Scotland where I live. They used to take our school classes out to see around the 707 and gave us the wings. I had quite a few of them.
The future is not what it used to be. Just think, today's big names like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon might be in the dustbin of history in decades to come.
When I was a kid growing up in Brazil, I used to fly from Sao Paulo to Miami on the 707. Back then, things were really different. On those long haul flights, I would tell my mom and dad that I was going up to the cockpit and I would stay there for hours. That is where I fell in love with aviation and the idea of becoming a pilot. 45 years later, I became a pilot, albeit a helicopter pilot, where this evening, I just flew my last Black Hawk NVG flight over the city of ...........Keep up the great videos.
Not only was it insanely expensive when I first began to fly in 1970 the price of airline tickets was regulated so there was no price shopping. It was deregulated in 1978.
It’s cheaper to fly now than it was in the 1980s, but that comes with trade offs. We’ve essentially done away with bud travel, and aircraft have taken over that niche. Airlines, if they want to stay in business, have to compete with the greyhound class airlines, so there you go.
Thank you for your videos. I learn something new every time. I flew in an old 747 to Korea, the seat belt buckle had Pan Am on it. We were packed in tight. We called it the "Cattle Jet."
I miss flying on Pan Am, great airline! The best airline I ever flew on, I flew military standby in uniform and they always gave me a good seat! Great people who ran Pam Am!
What an excellent mini-documentary, Kelsey! There was a much longer one about Pan Am some years ago that went into more detail; you've provided all the essentials while offering an industry professional's perspective. Your comments about the quality of the experience of flying with Pan Am in its heydays are borne out by an old training video that surfaced on UA-cam a while back, showing stewards and stewardesses how to provide impeccable beverage and food service. It looked like nothing less than high end restaurant quality stuff, from the food itself to the utensils and dishware, and even the manner in which to present things. It put the first class service on modern airlines into the shade! Of course, Pan Am was in many ways a victim of its own success, as highlighted by the fact that having developed a business model on the back of cheap fuel, it was ill-prepared to cope when prices surged in the 1970s. However, it wasn't helped by the disasters that befell in the last decade or so of operation: the bombing over Lockerbie is forever etched into my memory (I'll never forget the news coverage, which was naturally very prominent here in the UK) but there was also the 1977 disaster at Tenerife involving a Pan Am 747 and a KLM 747, which remains the deadliest aircraft accident in history, discounting "9/11" in which the crashes were deliberate and the death toll included thousands not aboard the aircraft involved. While Pan Am was not at fault for either Tenerife or Lockerbie, the reputational damage was done. Arguably, it is the fate of all things to end - fathers pass away leaving their sons to take over running things, and Pan Am was in many ways the "father" of all major airlines. Some of them are very successful and offer a decent service, but we may never again see anything quite like Pan Am!
My first 2 trips were on Pan Am from NYC to Sydney Australia in 1979 and 1981. The first was before the Quanta's Kuala ad campaign that really changed tourism for Australia. Back then they flew from NYC to Los Angeles. Then from LA to Hawaii. Plane switch from a 747 to a 747SP. Then from Hawaii to Auckland, New Zealand. Then to Sydney. Once you left Hawaii the plane was so empty that you could put all the arm rests up in a row on the center seats and lie down and sleep. You had your choice of rows for this. You got real meal service. Since I was 17 and alone I was treated like a minor and at every stop someone was there to make sure I was ok and that I got on the next leg ok. All the crew was great and I got to see the cockpits of some of the planes and meet the captains. Very cool first experiences for a kid. I miss that airline a lot. I look forward to your videos. You produce great content. Thanks!
My mom was a travel agent in the late 70s/early 80s and I remember her telling me stories about flying PanAm and hire glorious it was. She’d also told me stories of Lockerbie and the Canary Islands as well. On Sundays, we’d go to ohare and sit under the runway and I once got to see a PanAm 747 land. Great video. Keep em coming.
Kudos, Kelsey. This was the most concise and accurate summary of the saga of Pan Am that I have ever seen. I’m a double Pan Am brat, dad retired as a 747 and SP captain in the early 80’s, mom was a stewardess until they got married and I came along in 1968.
Loved this! Brought back memories of flying Pan Am from USA to Europe and back several times in the 1960's. The food was fabulous, the service impeccable, and for some reason I'll never forget the hot hand towels that accompanied meal service. It was glorious!
Yeah I agree with you. I love those memories flying with Pan Am back then. I even stayed with them right up until they closed shop. Would’ve been nice if we got to do it all again!
Always excited for a Captain Kelsey Sunday. This was fascinating to hear. I LOVED the “to my girl the 747” 😂Thank you for the lesson. My father worked in computers and very much the same in technology- it grew so fast. From the first “computer” that could simply add, subtract, multiply, and divide to a hand held calculator- from land line to cell phones. From the first Apple and Microsoft computers that could barely change colors and type out letters to what we all have today. A small time frame if you stop and think about it. I always enjoy seeing you. Stay safe Kelsey. 😊
I have quite a few dear friends in the 85-100 age range & the sheer amount of super-rapid change they've lived through absolutely blows my mind: societal, technological, medical, the list is endless... 🤯 It's a real testament to the adaptability of humans that people can live through and adapt to so much and stay more-or-less functional! One can perhaps see why we're still living through some high-conflict times though, as societies struggle with the resulting change fatigue & adaptation challenges posed by all those shifts? Not everybody has kept up at the same rate, & we're ALL struggling with some of the environmental & health/wellbeing consequences of how thoughtlessly so many of our technological shifts have been implemented, alas...
I got to fly Pan Am a couple of times as a kid going between Houston and Raleigh (split parents) and thoroughly enjoyed the flights. The flight crew were all top notch and since I usually boarded first the pilots let me hang out on the jump seat while they configured the plane while the other passangers found their seats. Made me kind of sad when they went under. Pan Am and Piedmont were my favorite carriers to fly with
My dad was an Aircraft Structural Mechanic for the US Navy in the '60s and '70s, and my family moved a lot. I don't remember flying until we moved to Hawaii in the early '70s. I remember getting a toy helicopter that had a Pan Am logo on it when I was about six years old; I really liked that logo, especially the shape and colors of it. A year or so later, after my parents separated, my dad remained in Hawaii as the rest of us flew back to the contiguous states. We flew on a 747. Wow, I loved that bird! I got a plastic model of it from my model kit building subscription, and I played with that model a lot. My mom, an elementary and high school teacher, bought a Styrofoam 747 as a teaching aid for her classroom. I was sad to see the demise of Pan Am.
Fast evolution my foot! This is intelligent design, and there are no more intelligent designers in airline history than Juan Trippe. Almost every airline in the world owes its structure, procedures, terminologies and organizational flow to Trippe.
We lived this in the ‘80s… My lower middle class family saved for years to take a trip to Europe. Dad bought discounted tickets on Pan Am well in advance. On our flight back from Zurich to JFK we had a bird strike on takeoff and lost an engine… they dumped fuel for 30 minutes, and returned to Zurich. We got to JFK about 6 hours late and missed our connections. We were one of two Pan Am 747s that was very delayed arriving - and they had about 700 people stranded in JFK. They told us that only “full fare” customers got hotel assistance - and they would get us home standby. So - they basically had 700 people sleeping in their terminal for days. There were six of us, mom, dad, and four kids. It took almost three days to get us back to Phoenix from JFK. Pretty sure that was when dad, who did travel for work, moved his business to United.
I guess one nice thing about being in the coastal Northeast, If I am flying home from somewhere and something happens to flight timing I would just ask for anything between DC and Boston. And then take the Acela back to Philly.
As a child growing up in the 70's and 80's Pan Am is the only civilian aviation name that I remember seeing. When you got a toy airplane it had Pan Am or USAF emblazoned on it. Pan Am was the crescent wrench of civilian aviation in America, When I hear 'Boeing747' to this day I get a mental picture of a Pan Am 747. This is not only a direct result of all the toy marketing but also the bombing over Lockerbie Scotland AND the enormous amount of news coverage throughout their decline. For many Pan Am was forever synonymous with the Lockerbie bombing and after Pan Am was dead and gone it seems like Lockerbie was forgotten, I remember when the anniversary of the bombing was observed every year now I rarely har of it.
Lockerbie is definitely still in the minds of the people here in the UK who are old enough to remember it. There's always a yearly remembrance service in Lockerbie and a remembrance week at Syracuse university, so hopefully it will never be forgotten.
Most folks don't know that Pan Am Corporation survived the loss of its airline division, and continued to operate its rail and petroleum holdings until June 2022, when it was finally bought out by CSX. Actually, most folks don't even know the *had* rail and petroleum divisions.
From Wikipedia… “It was formerly known as Guilford Transportation Industries and was also known as Guilford Rail System. Guilford bought the name, colors, and logo of Pan American World Airways in 1998.”
@@HVACSoldier so guess it never *had* rail and petroleum divisions ;). A company bought the name and is doing business as, so Pan Am as we knew it in the 60s, 70, and 80s, never had anything to do with petroleum. Nice fact check!
@@BitwiseMobile Exactly. Pan Am sold their hotels, their building, their routes, and their planes. In the end, they sold their rights to the logo. I made a meme out of it. How an airline that was supposed to do flights into space by 2001, ended up devolving into rail, instead.
Kelsey, you missed the PanAm role in Europe after WW2. The allies decided that Lufthansa was not allowed to operate into Berlin and PanAm took up the role, flying in my youth (60/70’s) as I can remember with a lots of B727 flights from Berlin to Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munchen and also to other European destinations including Amsterdam where I used to see them daily. Still also remember the first ever B747, PanAm naturally, into Amsterdam that brought the Airport and surrounding roads to a standstill and got me even more exited on aviation. Fast forward to 2012 on 1 August and I had the honor now working for Emirates to be part of the official delegation to fly the first ever commercial A380 into Amsterdam. this again was a historic moment that brought the airport to a standstill. PanAm although I never flew them left a lasting impression on me.
@@robbroere1384 Not exactly. I believe there were three corridors, one American PanAm, one French Air France, one British BEA. I believe there were three max Flight Level in the corridors was FL100( 10,000 feet approximately). I had a PanAm guy jump seat with me that was a 727 FE based in Berlin. This had to be 1985 or later because that was when I first flew Captain at Tigers in the 727. This FE said “I’ll bet I’ve had more landings from the FE seat than you will ever have from the left seat”. In the Berlin Base they gave the FE landings from his seat. The FE would handle the throttles with his left hand ailerons and elevator with his right hand using the F/Os yoke, one of the pilots had to handle any rudder requirement.
Early long distance routes used flying boats because a piece of water could provide an airport landing strip without having to construct a runway. Most major destinations were at harbours. The circumstance that it provided infinite alternative emergency landing options was only a useful by product.
Great video, and spot on. I grew up with paa, my dad was also a pilot from 1955-1991. He loved every minute of those boeings and douglas ac. Enjoy your careers cuz they may tank before you know it.
This is golden, Kelsey! I love aviation and I love history. As you do with the other types of videos, in this history, you make what could be a very bland thing into something which is compelling. Love it! BTW... 5:37 Some how "No business is to be conducted in the (Inter-)Continental!" comes to mind 🙂
We had some former Pan Am pilots at ATA, and they passed a lot of cool flying knowledge to us. Before that, my commuter job was with the Delta Connection, and I fondly remember flying into JFK at the crack of dawn, to that Pan Am terminal. They cooked up the best food downstairs in their employee cafeteria.
Thanks a million, Captain, for this superb episode. It brought back memories of my first international flight on our dear lamented Pan Am in 1961 - wearing high heels and white gloves. Those were the days, eh? You are the best, Kelsey!
Hey Kelsey, great story on pan am, I flew from New York to Germany in 1957 in a constellation, I remember watching those props spinning forever! Then later in life I spent from 2017 to 2020 at Bagram airfield in Afghanistan as an electrician with the Fluor Corp. Spent many a day on the flight line watching everything you can imagine being off loaded from various 747 aircraft that had no marking on them at all, just plain white birds. Some were national 747s and they were marked, but I always wondered about the unmarked birds. Saw groceries, water, machinery, military stuff, building materials, anything needed to keep the military machine wheels greased and stocked came off many different 747s. Beautiful aircraft !
You are correct when you say folks working there felt they were set for life! I started working there in 1988 fresh out of Aviation High School in NYC. I certainly thought that I was now setup for life! I also remember that phone message and I have a saved tape of that somewhere in my possesions. Thanks for the memories sir!
My father was a mechanic for Pan Am at SFO in the late 60s till he was transferred to Guam in the 70s. I completely remember those years flying from Guam to LAX or SFO. Having to wear my Church Clothes and sitting on Stand-by in Honolulu. As a 6-year old, flying in a 747 was like a fortress. I remember asking for Soda constantly from the really pretty lady dressed in blue. I remember the routine was my dad would have me sit on the seat next to the window with my dad sitting next to me. My mom and sister would sit on the middle 5 seats. At some point in the flight, my dad and mom would leave with me building my little fort on the 3 seats (ABC) and my sister would be asleep in the middle seats all spread out (she barely covered 2 seats but she had all 5. And for years I never knew where my parents went. Come to find out years later, my mom shared with me that Dad would talk to the Flight Attendants (Stewardesses) and they would sit up in First Class. FIRST CLASS!?!?!? While me and my sister sat in the back in Economy (but still felt really great with the food given compared to now). My mom said they would go upstairs and just have a grand old time while I was blowing air into the Pan Am supplied Headphones (they weren't wired) or constantly switch the channels to hear the different types of songs. To this day, I still love the smell of Jet Exhaust as it reminded me of my Dad.
I flew Pam Am as a teenager to Texas via New York in 1984, As i called it a double decker and there was only around 20 people on it including the crew and i was told i could sit anywhere i wanted big chairs and you could smoke your lungs out.
Pan Am kid here, grew up on their 727's. You are right - NOTHING today compares to even the Pan Am of the 80s, which had largely degraded in service from their highs in the 60s and 70s. When I fly, my carry on still sports that famous logo. Thank you for this video.
At the time of Lockabie, I was a manager at the Waldorf Hotel where the Pan-Am crews were put up for their overnight stays in London. It was a very somber time when we heard of the attack on the 747 flight.....
This made me cry. I loved flying on PanAm! It was THE standard for excellence that all the other airlines were jealous to have! Thanks Kelsey! Great post!
Thanks for this video. I’m an a United Airlines brat and distinctly remember the golden era of jet travel coming to an end. Brings me back to a simpler time in my life.
Yes, more history content please! Thanks, Kelsey. I know it takes a bit more effort than the react content but it is so much more fun to watch! Also, that lady in the bikini underneath a fur coat cracked me up. It was a different time.
I remember flying on Pan Am back and forth to Europe in the mid-1970s and they really took great care of their customers, they took pride in their business and it showed. I miss those days when flying was fun.
Eastern please... I got my dream job at 19 fueling the A300, 747 and the L1011s.... My brother called me at midnight and ask did I know we were out of business... "Oh, We have been out of business for years".
@@bodyloverz30Frank Lorenzo is the anti-Christ but it wasn’t just him that destroyed Eastern. Charlie Bryan was a big factor is Eastern’s demise as well
My Pan Am experience was in March of 1974. I had finished my Army two year tour in Bamberg and along with about half a dozen other guys got bumped off our military charter flight back to the US. The next day we were taken to the civilian side of the airport and put on Pan Am Flight One. The fun part was Mohammad Ali was lounging in a first class seat when we boarded, and when everyone got off the plane in London for a while he came over and shot the breeze with us for a while. I have a Pan Am Flight One boarding pass with his autograph from that. The not so great part for me was even though coach seats had more room then when I looked around the plane cabin it felt like I was in a herd of cattle. And since my pay had been stopped to make sure I had some money at discharge, I did not have money for the earphones, and let me tell you Woody Allan's movie Sleeper makes absolutely not sense without sound.
Great story, I still have my "Pan Am" branded luggage I bought at Montgomery/Wards Store in the late 70's. Sure wish (with you,) we could all just go back to those days. They were great times for many of us.
Greetings from Scotland, Captain Kelsey. I remember the Lockerbie air crash well. Such a shocking loss of life. A garden of remembrance now marks the site of the crash. As for Pan Am. I used to watch their beautiful planes landing at Glasgow in the '70s, and dreaming of flying away in one of them to some far off place. They always stood out, they were so cool looking and their flight crews, immaculate. I hope that, one day, someone, or a group, will figure a way to bring it back. The whole aviation industry is poorer because of their absence.
Hey Kelsey. In 1991 I was a fueler for Allied Aviation at JFK. On the day they shut down I was actively fueling a Pan Am 727 when the supervisor came screaming over to me in his pickup truck, making the "cut it off" motion by frantically waving his hand under his chin. I immediately dropped the Deadman switch, thinking the fuel must be spilling, or the plane was on fire or something!
Turns out that the Delta board had just decided not to make the large payment they had promised to keep Pan Am (which they were in the process of acquiring) flying. At the moment of that decision, Pan Am was rendered completely insolvent and unable to pay its bills. Thus the decision by Allied to stop fueling. The passengers on that flight had to deplane and the flight never took off. A long time ago, but I remember THAT day clearly. R.I.P. Pan Am.
Pam am failed because they kept the 747 to long instead of investing in planes ! Plus the lockable disaster!
Sad 😮
@@AndrewRod-c5v *Lockerbie
@@AndrewRod-c5v The "lockable" disaster was when you left your keys in your car.
@@AndrewRod-c5v and before that, they sold their pacific routes to united to initially help with their bills, but it didn't
My dad was one of those executives at Pan Am. He was fluent in Mandarin from his time in Air Force intelligence so when Nixon opened up China to trade with the west, Pan Am was the first airline to have service to Beijing with my dad acting as general manager. As his kid, I got treated like a prince wherever we traveled - some of my fondest memories. Thanks for stirring those up in me today, Kelsey. Blue skies!
Great story. Thanks for sharing.
Nixon did not "open up China to trade with the west." China never stopped trading with the west.
Nixon ended the United States' self-imposed isolation from China.
Nobody else had ever joined the US in its silly attempt at ignoring the Chinese revolution out of existence.
Cool story bro. “Boy born with a silver spoon enjoys silver spoons”… you should be selling that story to movie executives. Imagine the silver spoons you could buy.
Toss.
LOL sure sure sure
Well done. I was a Pan Am pilot from October 1966 till the end in December of 1991. Not an ounce of regret, and tons of great memories. I would do it all over again.
I flew on a Qantas 747 in 1974 and a Qantas 707 in the same year, the fuselage had to be shortened on the Australian version of the Qantas 707 Vjet because of the short runway in Fiji between Sydney and LA
I was a passenger on one of Pan Ams last flights, from KKMC to Nuremberg.
It was a icon of its age.
Wow, you flew to the end! Thank you for all those safe trips. I flew it my one and only time in 1991, so maybe you were my pilot. You and your brethren made flying cool for me, as a poor kid who had a model of a Pan Am 747. I was so excited for my first business trip as a brand new out of uni kid getting to fly with them to NYC. Still wear a tie and vest when I fly today...makes me weird but that first flight, in my business suite...will always stay with me!
I knew Norman Morall. He was a Pan Am pilot around that same time you were. He left the airlines in 1981 I believe.
There were many factors in Pan Am’s downfall. Fuel prices, the wrong route system (nothing in the U.S. to feed the international routes), and hubris. I flew Pan Am to the Caribbean in 1973, my first and only time on a 707. After the merger with National, I went to the big multi-airline office (opposite Grand Central Station, back then) to buy an emergency ticket from New York to Miami when my grandfather was hospitalized. They said, “we don’t fly from New York to Miami.” I said, “Yes, you do.” We went back & forth with a few other reps, until one of them said, “oh yeah, we picked up that route from National.” I remember thinking, if that’s their mentality, they’re not going to be around much longer.
Shouldn't the title be "How PAN AM killed itself" ?
Yeah, they spent all that money acquiring those domestic routes, then the other US airlines teamed up to get the regulations changed so they could fly internationally. So it was all for nothing and totally screwed Pan Am.
Interesting enough. I was returning to NY from a transportation expo in DC that had a big presentation from Amtrak, one thing they said was they would accept credit cards, used mine to buy a metroliner trip back to NY. A few days later I went to Grand Central to buy a ticket up to Syracuse (It was them or the bus), the Amtrak ticket agent laughed when I took out my credit card, I guess he didn't get the email, oh, sorry, that was b4 email. One of many reasons private railroads didn't succeed in the passenger business. On the metroliner trip I did get to ride up in the engineer's cab (they used MU cars then), interesting but at no point in the ride did we exceed 110 mph. So much for Amerikan HS rail. They still don't go much faster on this route today.
@@roseduste80 That’s not correct. The Airline Deregulation Act (which is often attributed to Ronald Reagan, but was actually promoted and passed by Jimmy Carter) was not the brainchild of the airlines! They had to be dragged kicking & screaming into the age of deregulation; they certainly didn’t cook it up. But some airlines took advantage of the new opportunities, and some didn’t. Pan Am, as you pointed out, bought a whole airline and didn’t know how to coordinate their new network.
Oh ,BOY! Ya think you have an expert in your midst. Well, working in reservations at American had its challenges. Part of it was on the callers and part of it was on us. We booked a passenger to Charleston as requested. Charleston, SC. The passenger wanted to go to Charleston, WV. Who is THAT on? We didn't fly to WV and at NO point in our training were we taught there were MORE than ONE Charleston. Then there was the call I PERSONALLY got from the Phillips family. They gave me the flight info for their REZ. Flight number, city pair, even the times and I could NOT for the life of me find their Rez. After 5 mins of futility, they finally told me their name was spelled Filips. SERIOUSLY?
I have watched many of your videos and enjoyed them all.
This one almost brought tears to my eyes. I was extremely fortunate to retire from Delta, after starting with North Central airlines, as 747 Captain. I flew out of JFK and we were in the old Pan Am terminal. Gave me goosebumps walking through there to my flights.
It was my dream since I soloed in a J3 a long time ago. It brought back memories. I believe part of Pan Am's demise was that they could not fly between stops in the US. They had to originate in the US and go to another country and visa versa. That was a huge handicap.
Keep up the good work.
Tom
Hello, what do you mean "they could not fly stops in the US" ?
As an unaccompanied child travelling with Pan Am, I felt so pampered, with the charming stewardesses taking special care of me, I even got to witness the landing in the jump seat of a 747 cockpit several times. I remember that cockpit, no glass cockpit, steam gauges and switches all over the place!
Hah, I had a similar experience on PLL LOT in the 90s. It was an "interactive" experience, but that's all I can say on social media without getting people in trouble :D
I was really young when I flew unaccompanied LAX-JFK. All I remember is them giving me things to do. It reminded me of the highlights magazines that were for some reason only seen in doctor’s office waiting rooms just it was full of pandas.
@@sebtonz1 You can still get it if you are willing to pay for it.
Lol why were you traveling on a 747 "several times" as an unaccompanied kid? Your parents split and one said deuces and left state? Thats what happened to me anyways.
@@87minii see you dont understand what the word "standards" mean.
When I was just 15 I read a book on the design and early production of the 747. This book inspired me so much that I went into aircraft maintenance. I still have my Paul Bunyan insignia on my toolbox all these years later. The story of how the 747 was made is truly a remarkable one. Thank You for the videos. And long live the Queen :)
Cool story. .thanks for sharing 😊
I don't get it. Why the Paul Bunyan reference?
My father was a mechanical engineer with Boeing and worked on the 727, 747, and SST. He saw the writing on the wall and left before the layoffs started after the SST was cancelled. I remember his many trips to Seattle and Wichita plants (he was based out of the Boeing Vertol office), his constantly bringing work home and working on it late on a big drafting board, and the pride once the jet was unveiled. PanAm was a part of it's success story. Too bad PanAm didn't develop domestic routes. It's a complex story, as not just one thing brought the demise of the airline. Mismanagement certainly was at the forefront.
same i was so inspired by the 747 became a a/p worked jumbos my whole aviation career , china airlines atlas polar kalita now ups
I feel it when I watch future looking movies like 2001 A Space Odyssey and you see the space plane is Pan Am. There's a tinge of sadness for a bright possible future that never was. Great video, thanks.
Luckily, Lufthansa doesn't care and will continue to fly the 747 for several years.
how i feel any time i see an old movie with TWA. loved flying TWA.
@@sirmonkey1985when flying was such an enjoyable experience! People dressed up, were polite, the food was good, it was roomy and comfortable. Even first class is not what flying once was for everyone.
@@reppi8742but many have upper first class or executive that are far beyond... Like Emirates. Very private seating or even cabins.
Those tickets are about 25k per person.
@@miller-joel I'm determined to get on one of Lufthansa's Queens before they retire their fleet! I'm over 50 😉 and haven't been able to fly on her yet, so I'm very thankful there's someone out there keeping these beauties flying for the public!! ✈️❤
My dad was a flight engineer for Pan Am - starting on the Boeing 314 flying boats, through becoming the chief check engineer for the DC-6B, and finishing on the DC-8. He retired in 1982 and was one of the lucky ones to leave with a pension. We grew up thinking Pan Am was the only airline - I never flew with another until after the collapse. I'm now a private pilot and miss Pan American, the wolds most experience. airline whenever I think about traveling. Thanks for another terrific video.
'We'll be travelling at 6000 miles an hour at a height of 300 feet.' I didn't catch that mistake when I'd watched that film back then!
Another Pan Am baby here thank you for the great video! My dad was a pilot for Pan Am in the late 1960s and he flew the 747. It might have been a dream for some, but he later said it was like being a bus driver. Not exciting enough I guess so we moved from San Diego to Alaska and he flew for the fish and game there which I guess was his happy place. RIP Kim Bussell🛩✈
I have the same experience about a pilot who describes the profession as a bus driver. I have a friend who trained as an airline pilot. After working for a few years as a pilot, he changed profession to farmer. About his pilot experience, he says it was like working as a bus driver and not fun at all.
I’m not a pilot but I can see the similarities. Whether driving a Greyhound bus or flying a passenger plane, you’re providing the same service.
A plane could be described as a flying bus. But it is bigger, technically more complex and subject to more elaborate traffic rules. The main difference between a bus driver and pilot becomes apparent when a problem emerges. Where the bus driver just needs to apply the brakes and then call for help, the pilots have to find a solution to get their plane safely onto the ground, for which a lot of knowledge is required.
yah my friend said he would have kept flying if they let him wear jeans,a t shirt,ball cap like we see Kelsey now and then--have another friend who does tour bus all over the usa--he freakin loves it but he is single guy
My father was a captain on PAN AM after National Airlines was bought out. He said PAN AM spent money hand over fist, unnecessarily, which he felt was a huge contributing factor to it going out of business.
Now the airlines scrimp and save unecessarily
Agreed. My father was in management for National and Pan Am’s purchase of National took both airlines down. First thing they did was steal National’s retirement funds and got rid of profitable routes. Corporate greed at its finest.
@@TheFULLMETALCHEF That's true.
No Elon Musk to get rid of the unproductive management types.
@@francoistombeElon musk is a horrible business person. But he has his cult followers.
He spent $3 billion in all these years and at most has caught a single booster. He promised to be on the Moon by now.
Starship isn't even close for a crewed mission to the Moon. It has not launched with cargo weight. It's supposed to take 20 launches for a single manned mission to the Moon. It's a bad design... And we paid for it.
He is not the genius you think he is. But his team and his brand is able to get suckers to invest in his company... Which he gives himself more bonuses than the profit the company brings in.
How does that work?
I had the privilege of flying on Pam Am Flight number 1 around the world in 1977. Our group chartered for 234 of us who were going to India. JFK to Heathrow, then to Frankfurt, then Tehran and finally Delhi. 33 hours on the plane each way with the stopovers..... Magnificent machine and the Clipper service was excellent. Myself and 2 friends had recently gotten our private pilot's licenses and mentioned it to the flight crew, and the Captain let each of us come up to the flight deck during a stopover and gave us a tour so to speak. Fantastic experience!
Best part: No tsa.
@@miller-joel Yeah well... Lockerbie.
@@oldRighty1 Yeah, well...the tsa would not have prevented that. They didn't catch the "shoe b0mber." They fail something like 90% of their own internal audits. They only "catch" your water bottle.
Also, the PanAm 103 b0mb was in the cargo hold. A little more rational prevention, and less irrational fear. Security theater is not security.
Yes as a kid then I was fascinated by aviation and Pan Am in particular. Still remember watching PA 1 and PA 2 round the world flights at Tehran Mehrabad airport. 43 years in aviation I still cherrish Pan Am's contributions to Aviation. My last flight on Pan Am was just a few months before the collapse on JFK-LHR-JFK route on 747.
@@oldRighty1 I already explained how that's irrelevant, but yt shadow banned it, as usual.
Great video and commentary Capt. Kelsey. I still have great memories of Pan Am. In the seventies I worked for a different airline but traveled many times on Pan Am to Europe and South America, all for free. (thru the employee interline free/discount agreements with other airlines). One time on a flight from Rome to New York the B747-200 was overbooked and I was among a group of about 15 people who could not get on board. At the last minute the ticket agent announced that there was only one seat available in first class and asked "who is travelling alone with no family?" and immediately I raised my hand; by luck I was the only 'lone bird' and a gorgeous stewardess walked me to my seat in first class. What a fabulous experience that was for me, the food, the drinks, the constant attention from the stewardesses. RIP Pan American World Airways.
Both my parents worked for Pan Am in Miami, even back to the seaplane days at Dinner Key. Thank you for this marvelously eloquent piece on "The World's Most Experienced Airline". You are correct - there was and is no ride like the ride on the Queen of the Skies, on the king of the airlines.
I prefer this type of video to the "mom kicked off the plane video" every time. Thanks.
Same here!
I third that!
These and the viral debriefs are my fav
I’m in total agreement
youtube is oversaturated with drama and anger-provoking videos, isn't it...
PanAm also pioneered the computerized booking, reservation, and ticketing system that we all take for granted these internet days. PAA was probably one of the top three most innovative airlines in history.
YES.
Kelsey, that was probably one of the best tellings of that story ever. I've seen documentaries about it and all that, and you told it in all of about 15 minutes. It is truly a sad story of a good company.That was a victim of the time.
He didnt really bring up deregulation and its effect which was immense.
@@bradsanders407 That is very true, but that didn't happen until 1978, and by then Pan Am was already bleeding money. That just accelerated their demise. (Then, you had airlines like Braniff that thought deregulation wouldn't last and they spent a ton of money to buy up every route they could to position themselves for post-deregulation. That never occurred, and they went broke too).
Thank you for this one. My dad worked for Pan Am as a mechanic in Honolulu. Yes. That time of flying was something. Very special. We did dress up when ever we went anywhere. And yes. It was the gas prices along with the fact that Pan Am was not able to feed its international, overseas routes because they did not have the right routes withing the US. And I remember my dad telling me that when United purchased the Orient routes, they'd struggle because they're service was not up to par with what the international travelers experienced before and with other international carriers.
Sad day in aviation to be sure. I watched some of the things you talked about at my airline and is now struggling when once on top. On a pleasant note; I was in 3rd grade in Lynwood,WA when my Dad who was working on 747 for LTV took my brother and I to see the second flight of “number 1 747” at Paine Field in Everett,WA. GREAT DAY with my Dad!! He took a 16mm film of it which I still have!!! So glad to have heard they completely restored it! Sad that it retired (except for freighters). Truly a GREAT milestone and innovation in aviation. Thanks for the video history lesson. ❤
Hi Kelsey, I am 81 years old, and I do remember that we flew from Cincinnati to Japan on Pan Am… I was only about 10 or 11, but I do remember having a nice little flight bag with the pan M. logo on the side.
In 1980 i was given a metal Pan-Am pin, but sadly lost it long ago. Used to be with my toys...
Me too! We flew overseas several times between 1968 and 1977 on Pan Am, and those flight bags were prized possessions.
they gave kids cigarettes also
@@margarita8442 Instead they should have given tons of sugar, fructose, glucose, processed food and trans fat like today right?
Nobody gave cigarettes to kids ever btw but today’s kids are being poisoned by much much worse things than cigarettes.
Amen🤣🤣@@gonenguldal5782
Friend of mine was junior at a PanAm regional when the axe dropped.
He applied everywhere, but got nothing back except for an interview with a tiny airline in Texas that he'd never heard of. He really didn't want to commute from New York, but he had 2 kids to feed.
He's now Top 100 overall seniority at Southwest Airlines.
Was the “regional” Southern Jersey? Or “Biz Ex?” 🤔
@@flitetymHe is referring to Southwest which was a regional based Texas
I always look forward to Kelsey Sundays.
Same. The weekends in between just aren't the same lol
@@wingflex5367 Agreed 👍
What’s with the football games on Kelsey Sundays ?
Kelsundey, if you will
Same. I hope he’s doing ok. I know right before he got his fourth stripe he was a little down in the dumps for a little bit and his uploads were less frequent. I hope he’s doing better.
I saw both "The Aviator" and "Catch Me If You Can" and loved them both, but I had no idea of what forces ultimately took Pan Am down. It's sad. Thank you so much for making this video.
I go by the Flight Path museum at LAX every day to work, and always told myself I should top in to check it out at some point, but never did in all the years I've lived here until July of this year. This year being the first in 28 years that I began to see getting my pilots license as a possible reality instead of shelved as an unattainable dream.
The amount of history packed into that building is overwhelming. It hits you when you walk in the door. There's so much attached to each object that you can easily get lost in time.
I was talking to a volunteer who used to be a stewardess for Pan Am. She recounted her experiences of how amazing it was, and that it was also hard work. After hearing her stories, I went back to the Pan Am room.
It felt more alive than before.
I found myself staring at the stewardess and pilot uniforms on display while my imagination got lost in a daydream of what it must have felt like to wear one; of how it must have felt knowing that you were the best.
Admittedly, I felt the pang of loss, which confused me. My family has no ties to the airlines (that I know of) other than my late grandpa's job as an aircraft engineer here back in the 50's and 60's. (I think he'd laugh that he took the family up to northern California, and I wound up back at LAX half a century later.)
My eyes kept drifting to the pilot uniform, because that's ultimately what I want to do - Fly. I don't know if Pan Am had women pilots (I'd need to look it up), but I would have loved it.
What a time it must have been to be a pilot.
I really should take that woman up on her offer to volunteer there. My job cut everyone's hours, so I have time now.
Great recap and analysis Kelsey. My dad was with Pan Am for almost 30 years when the shut down. For a period of time, he was with Pan Am and I was with American at ORD. Always enjoyed being able to visit him while we were on the job and had a break. It was a sad day when Pan Am ceased operations. I am still with American but now in DFW. Always enjoyed seeing the Atlas 747’s when I’m at work.
I was home sick from work when 103 came down, and watched the TV coverage. Terrible day for aviation and the world.
Thank you for this video and all the fond memories it brings me. As a boy growing up in the 50s in West Germany, to fly with Pan Am started as a childhood dream. My first little scale airline model was - PanAm. My first short haul flight was Pan Am (they were the online airline licensed to fly from Wets German American sector to West Berlin). And my first long distance flight (Frankfurt - New York) was with a Pan Am 747.
Nice video. I grew up in the 70's and 80's with my father being a Western Airlines pilot. What a great time to fly back then. Their TV commercials were very popular at the time and they even had a few Hollywood celebrities in their commercials. We were able to fly on stand by passes and I remember having to wear a suit coat and tie as a child due to their policy that we were representing the airline as passengers. Western Airlines ended up merging with Delta in the mid-80's and my father told me about the same issues that you talk about here with the culture changes, etc. He was not a fan of some of Delta's procedures as he felt that Western had better procedures overall. Anyway, I miss those days and I miss Western Airlines.
Me too, Western was a huge part of my growing up, flying in and out of Salt Lake City
I remember those ads: “Western Airlines - The *only* way to fly!”
Where was your dad based?
Growing up in California, I remember the Western TV commercials with the cartoon bird passenger and the cartoon bird flight attendant serving him food and a beverage outside against the tail of the plane. He would say... "Western Airlines...the only way to fly" and then one of the cities Western served would show up on the tail. My siblings and I would always try to guess what that city would be before it appeared. What a great airline and a fun memory.
Thanks
Loved that history lesson! Since becoming a regular business traveler, I have been more and more interested in all things "flying". This channel has helped fuel that! Thanks for doing what you do here! 👍
What an awesome video, nearly had me in tears. My dad and both my uncles worked for Pan Am for over 40 years at JFK. I also worked for Pan Am for 3 1/2 years. From 1988-1991. Even in 1988 you had to dress up to travel, first class in the 747 was unmatchable to any other airline, even these days.. Pan Am was a family. I was hired on/retained by Delta in 1991 when they took over Pan Am operations at JFK. I went on to work an additional 30 years with Delta. But I'll always be a Pan Am girl. Great video ❤️✈️
Wow…the PanAm story is fascinating, especially the way you told it. Well done! Thanks, Kelsey!
1:51 worth noting there is a difference between a float plane and a flying boat. Float planes are regular aircraft with floats strapped to their fixed undercarriages (sometimes they have wheels too) and often extra float supports on the wingtips.
Flying boats, by comparison, have boat hulls with wings attached to the top of the hull. These land their hulls directly in the water.
Float planes can't usually handle much swell or chop at all on the water (they usually land on lakes or in harbours) and whilst flying boats can manage a bit of a swell they still need relatively calm conditions to land in - imagine if you were trying to land a 747 and the runway kept rising towards you and sinking away from you every few seconds of it's own volition.
Thank you so much for that wonderful video, and all the great background of Pan Am and the 747. Loved it!
I’ll never forget when the 747s went into service. I lived near SFO (San Francisco airport), a few miles away, high on a hill. From my bedroom window, I could look down to watch the planes taking off. They looked tiny from my vantage point, but as I said, the airport was literally several miles from my home.
I’ll never forget watching the 747s take off. That plane was so huge that, in comparison to the runway, it looked like it was moving very slowly. So slowly, it looked as though it wouldn’t get off the ground.
About halfway down the runway, the 747s would tilt dramatically upward, but continue down the runway. Smaller “normal sized”jets would have begun lifting off about 2/3 down the runway, but not the 747s.
Those huge planes continued lumbering down the runway, still looking slow, but tilted upward. It was a weird sight to watch! Then, just before reaching the end of the runway, I could see the plane had lifted off the ground. Yay! 😁 It still looked strange in the air though. The regular planes increased altitude at about the same angle they were flying. Those monstrous 747s gained altitude at about the same rate, except still flying tilted, as they were when taking off.
Now I know one reason for the extreme tilt of those big planes. There was so much weight in the fuel, tilting upward helped increase lift, so they could get off the ground before they ran out of runway! I wonder how the pilots felt doing that. Tilted upward like that, they could barely see over the nose of the plane, from what I could see.
Just WOW!
Excellent video! Growing up in the 70s I was always a Delta guy but a buddy of mine was a Pan Am nut. Now I know what he was talking about. Those 747s, that gorgeous white and blue livery, the Pacific routes...what a great era for av-geeks to have been a part of!
Great story thank you. Nothing to do with Pan Am but in 1990 I flew with my 6 year-old son on an SAA 747 (a twin deck) LDN to JHB.
The stewardess got us access to the pilot's cabin, about midnight, flying over the Sahara, total darkness except for occasional camp fires way down below, and starlight.
The cabin was so beautifully softly lit, the crew were so relaxed and cool, we didn't want to leave. Unforgettable. Unrepeatable.
Flew a few times in the late '70s and '80s JHB-LIS on SAA and TAP 747s (TAP would pitstop in Kinshasa or Brazzaville). By the '80s, SAA back then could not overfly certain African countries because of sanctions against apartheid and would have to fly nonstop and skirt some countries, which a modified 747 Jumbo could. But I do recall as a teen flying over the Sahara several times, too. Magical.
I like the history of aviation. Keep it coming Kelsey
I was a student in Roswell NM in 1970 when Pan Am was training pilots on the new 747s. Always remember how they looked flying around the area. We used to go out and watch them do touch and go’s. Magnificent planes.
I love aviation history . This is my favourite episode of yours so far!
Thanks!
I love this - this is genuine aviation content and I much prefer educational stuff like this over the problematic passenger-type videos. This was a great watch while cuddling with a sleeping newborn :)
You make a lot of the fact Pan Am was founded in 1927, just 24 years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight. Compare Qantas, founded in 1920 - 7 years before Pan Am, and just 17 years after the Wright Brothers - and not in North America, but in the tiny towns of Longreach and Winton, in the remote regions of outback Australia, on the opposite side of the planet, and at a time before aircraft could even fly across the Pacific.
You praise Pan Am’s founders, Hap Arnold, Carl Spaatz and John Jouett, who were all United States Army Air Corps officers. Again, compare Qantas’s founders, Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness, who volunteered for service at the outbreak of World War One - in 1914, three years before the US even entered the war - and served as mounted infantrymen in the Australian Light Horse Brigade before transferring to the Australian Flying Corps. They joined with Fergus McMaster, an experienced businessman, to create “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service” - Q.A.N.T.A.S. - which, 33 years after the demise of Pan Am, remains the oldest continuously operating airline in the world.
If the achievements of Arnold, Spaatz and Jouett in 1927 were remarkable, in creating an airline which lasted for all of 64 years, the achievements of Fysh, McGinness and McMaster were even more spectacular, in creating an airline which has now been going for 124 years, and shows no signs of disintegration.
Then there is the matter of operational safety. It is sometimes said that Qantas planes never crash. That is (unfortunately) not completely true. In its first 31 years, Qantas lost a total of 104 souls across 14 separate incidents, although many of these were sustained during World War II, when the Qantas aircraft were operating on behalf of Allied military forces. But Qantas has not had a single fatal accident since 1951 - 73 years ago, which is longer than Pan Am’s entire existence - and has never lost a jet airliner.
By 1951, when Qantas had been operating for 31 years and suffered 104 fatalities, Pan Am has been operating for 80% as long (24 years) but suffered almost 2½ times the number of fatalities (252). In the month of April 1952 alone, Pan Am equaled the all-time total Qantas death-toll in just two accidents. But worse was yet to come: 81 from a crash in December 1963, 63 from a crash in June 1968, 51 from a crash in December 1968, 78 from a crash in July 1973, 96 from a crash in January 1974, 107 from a crash in April 1974, 335 from a crash in March 1977, 145 from a crash in July 1982, and 259 in the Lockerbie terrorist bomb incident of December 1988.
So, if anyone wants to maintain the claim that Pan Am is history’s most iconic airline, I suggest they should broaden their horizons.
@@anthonymorris2276 Super interesting! But you may want to post it as a general comment rather than a reply to me so more people see it :)
These type videos are my fav as well as the viral debriefs ❤
@@anthonymorris2276 You are absolutely correct. What a wealth of information you have provided. I am an international traveler and demand QANTAS whenever possible. I am based in BKK and commute to SYD and I look forward every time of boarding a QANTAS flight. Love the airline.
Never flew Pan Am, my father was an airline captain in SAS. I grew up in the 1950-and 60 - SAS was quite like Pan AM - luxury all the way through - The Summer before I started at University, I worked as a dishwasher at SAS catering, I stod at a conveyer belt - and sorted cups an bowl into metal net baskets, that where sent into the dishwashing machine. You could tell the level at luxury of the airline, which containers you were working on. Pan AM's were always good - they always had 2 small chocolate sweets on their trays, not everyone ate them, my position on the belt was the first - I got all the ones that were left !!
20 years later I flew to New York on a charter airline (I don't remember the name) But it was a 747 and the seatbelts had Pan Am stamped into them ! The company had gone !
You may have known my Father, Viggo Hansen who ran SAS Catering in North America and who was the “SAS Master Chef” who showed up in various SAS ads in the ‘50s and ‘60s. That’s assuming you worked in the flight kitchen at JFK (originally in hangar 2 then hangar 18 and, later at Marriott in building 370) I worked for Marriott catering during the summers of ‘71-75.
Cool stories, both. In the late 60s and 70s, we flew a lot between Norway and New York’s JFK. It was usually SAS, but on at least two occasions we flew Pan Am 747 between Copenhagen and JFK. Who knows, both of you probably prepared some of the treats for us flying kids! ❤
Faintly remember getting my wings on Pan Am as a lil' kid. Still have those wings. Nice memories of the ole days.
Pan am used to fly into Prestwick, Scotland where I live. They used to take our school classes out to see around the 707 and gave us the wings. I had quite a few of them.
Great video. Pan Am was so iconic that Arthur C Clark in his movie 2001 A Space Odyssey flagged his space planes as Pan Am.
An example of product placement.
The future is not what it used to be. Just think, today's big names like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon might be in the dustbin of history in decades to come.
That was Stanley Kubrik's movie -- ACC did not appreciate a lot of Kubrik's vision and they didn't always get along. PanAm was Stanley's call.
@@sureshmukhi2316 Absolutely not product placement.
@@bradarmstrong3952 really? What was it then?
When I was a kid growing up in Brazil, I used to fly from Sao Paulo to Miami on the 707. Back then, things were really different. On those long haul flights, I would tell my mom and dad that I was going up to the cockpit and I would stay there for hours. That is where I fell in love with aviation and the idea of becoming a pilot. 45 years later, I became a pilot, albeit a helicopter pilot, where this evening, I just flew my last Black Hawk NVG flight over the city of ...........Keep up the great videos.
Oh look at that!! Actual seating space in coach.. People were comfortable traveling back then haha
True, and also it was far, far more expensive back then, too. So, you get what you pay for.
Yes, it was more comfortable, but we paid big for that privilege!!
Not only was it insanely expensive when I first began to fly in 1970 the price of airline tickets was regulated so there was no price shopping. It was deregulated in 1978.
It’s cheaper to fly now than it was in the 1980s, but that comes with trade offs. We’ve essentially done away with bud travel, and aircraft have taken over that niche. Airlines, if they want to stay in business, have to compete with the greyhound class airlines, so there you go.
Can’t have it both ways-comfortable travel and low prices.
Thank you for your videos. I learn something new every time. I flew in an old 747 to Korea, the seat belt buckle had Pan Am on it. We were packed in tight. We called it the "Cattle Jet."
Very good. I remember the events you describe and you are spot-on. Can you do another one on another iconic airline, PanAm's rival, TWA?
I'd like to see a video on TWA as well, please.
TWA please. Flight reductions in St. Louis and eventual demise destroyed the business climate in St. Louis.
I miss flying on Pan Am, great airline! The best airline I ever flew on, I flew military standby in uniform and they always gave me a good seat! Great people who ran Pam Am!
What an excellent mini-documentary, Kelsey! There was a much longer one about Pan Am some years ago that went into more detail; you've provided all the essentials while offering an industry professional's perspective. Your comments about the quality of the experience of flying with Pan Am in its heydays are borne out by an old training video that surfaced on UA-cam a while back, showing stewards and stewardesses how to provide impeccable beverage and food service. It looked like nothing less than high end restaurant quality stuff, from the food itself to the utensils and dishware, and even the manner in which to present things. It put the first class service on modern airlines into the shade! Of course, Pan Am was in many ways a victim of its own success, as highlighted by the fact that having developed a business model on the back of cheap fuel, it was ill-prepared to cope when prices surged in the 1970s. However, it wasn't helped by the disasters that befell in the last decade or so of operation: the bombing over Lockerbie is forever etched into my memory (I'll never forget the news coverage, which was naturally very prominent here in the UK) but there was also the 1977 disaster at Tenerife involving a Pan Am 747 and a KLM 747, which remains the deadliest aircraft accident in history, discounting "9/11" in which the crashes were deliberate and the death toll included thousands not aboard the aircraft involved. While Pan Am was not at fault for either Tenerife or Lockerbie, the reputational damage was done. Arguably, it is the fate of all things to end - fathers pass away leaving their sons to take over running things, and Pan Am was in many ways the "father" of all major airlines. Some of them are very successful and offer a decent service, but we may never again see anything quite like Pan Am!
Loving the video format, and the chance for an aviation history lesson! Keep it up Kels ☺️👍🏻
He does great stuff, yeah. :)
Flew on a Pan Am 747 from California to Japan then on to Hong Kong in 1974. Something a six year old will never, ever forget...
My first 2 trips were on Pan Am from NYC to Sydney Australia in 1979 and 1981. The first was before the Quanta's Kuala ad campaign that really changed tourism for Australia. Back then they flew from NYC to Los Angeles. Then from LA to Hawaii. Plane switch from a 747 to a 747SP. Then from Hawaii to Auckland, New Zealand. Then to Sydney. Once you left Hawaii the plane was so empty that you could put all the arm rests up in a row on the center seats and lie down and sleep. You had your choice of rows for this. You got real meal service. Since I was 17 and alone I was treated like a minor and at every stop someone was there to make sure I was ok and that I got on the next leg ok. All the crew was great and I got to see the cockpits of some of the planes and meet the captains. Very cool first experiences for a kid. I miss that airline a lot. I look forward to your videos. You produce great content. Thanks!
Almost my exact experience in 1980! May Pan Am R.I.P.
My mom was a travel agent in the late 70s/early 80s and I remember her telling me stories about flying PanAm and hire glorious it was. She’d also told me stories of Lockerbie and the Canary Islands as well. On Sundays, we’d go to ohare and sit under the runway and I once got to see a PanAm 747 land. Great video. Keep em coming.
Kudos, Kelsey. This was the most concise and accurate summary of the saga of Pan Am that I have ever seen. I’m a double Pan Am brat, dad retired as a 747 and SP captain in the early 80’s, mom was a stewardess until they got married and I came along in 1968.
Your father was lucky, he enjoyed the golden age of aviation.
Loved this! Brought back memories of flying Pan Am from USA to Europe and back several times in the 1960's. The food was fabulous, the service impeccable, and for some reason I'll never forget the hot hand towels that accompanied meal service. It was glorious!
Yeah I agree with you. I love those memories flying with Pan Am back then. I even stayed with them right up until they closed shop. Would’ve been nice if we got to do it all again!
Always excited for a Captain Kelsey Sunday. This was fascinating to hear. I LOVED the “to my girl the 747” 😂Thank you for the lesson. My father worked in computers and very much the same in technology- it grew so fast. From the first “computer” that could simply add, subtract, multiply, and divide to a hand held calculator- from land line to cell phones. From the first Apple and Microsoft computers that could barely change colors and type out letters to what we all have today. A small time frame if you stop and think about it. I always enjoy seeing you. Stay safe Kelsey. 😊
I have quite a few dear friends in the 85-100 age range & the sheer amount of super-rapid change they've lived through absolutely blows my mind: societal, technological, medical, the list is endless... 🤯
It's a real testament to the adaptability of humans that people can live through and adapt to so much and stay more-or-less functional!
One can perhaps see why we're still living through some high-conflict times though, as societies struggle with the resulting change fatigue & adaptation challenges posed by all those shifts? Not everybody has kept up at the same rate, & we're ALL struggling with some of the environmental & health/wellbeing consequences of how thoughtlessly so many of our technological shifts have been implemented, alas...
@@anna_in_aotearoa3166 agree 100% could not have worded that any better. Best wishes.
I got to fly Pan Am a couple of times as a kid going between Houston and Raleigh (split parents) and thoroughly enjoyed the flights. The flight crew were all top notch and since I usually boarded first the pilots let me hang out on the jump seat while they configured the plane while the other passangers found their seats. Made me kind of sad when they went under. Pan Am and Piedmont were my favorite carriers to fly with
My dad was an Aircraft Structural Mechanic for the US Navy in the '60s and '70s, and my family moved a lot. I don't remember flying until we moved to Hawaii in the early '70s. I remember getting a toy helicopter that had a Pan Am logo on it when I was about six years old; I really liked that logo, especially the shape and colors of it. A year or so later, after my parents separated, my dad remained in Hawaii as the rest of us flew back to the contiguous states. We flew on a 747. Wow, I loved that bird! I got a plastic model of it from my model kit building subscription, and I played with that model a lot. My mom, an elementary and high school teacher, bought a Styrofoam 747 as a teaching aid for her classroom.
I was sad to see the demise of Pan Am.
Great job! And I love how you managed to integrate your sense of humor. You made a history lesson really fun. Nicely done!
Fast evolution my foot! This is intelligent design, and there are no more intelligent designers in airline history than Juan Trippe. Almost every airline in the world owes its structure, procedures, terminologies and organizational flow to Trippe.
We lived this in the ‘80s… My lower middle class family saved for years to take a trip to Europe. Dad bought discounted tickets on Pan Am well in advance. On our flight back from Zurich to JFK we had a bird strike on takeoff and lost an engine… they dumped fuel for 30 minutes, and returned to Zurich. We got to JFK about 6 hours late and missed our connections. We were one of two Pan Am 747s that was very delayed arriving - and they had about 700 people stranded in JFK. They told us that only “full fare” customers got hotel assistance - and they would get us home standby. So - they basically had 700 people sleeping in their terminal for days. There were six of us, mom, dad, and four kids. It took almost three days to get us back to Phoenix from JFK. Pretty sure that was when dad, who did travel for work, moved his business to United.
That’s one of the things that probably hurt Pan Am. That and them being mostly an “international only” airline.
I guess one nice thing about being in the coastal Northeast, If I am flying home from somewhere and something happens to flight timing I would just ask for anything between DC and Boston. And then take the Acela back to Philly.
As a child growing up in the 70's and 80's Pan Am is the only civilian aviation name that I remember seeing. When you got a toy airplane it had Pan Am or USAF emblazoned on it. Pan Am was the crescent wrench of civilian aviation in America, When I hear 'Boeing747' to this day I get a mental picture of a Pan Am 747. This is not only a direct result of all the toy marketing but also the bombing over Lockerbie Scotland AND the enormous amount of news coverage throughout their decline. For many Pan Am was forever synonymous with the Lockerbie bombing and after Pan Am was dead and gone it seems like Lockerbie was forgotten, I remember when the anniversary of the bombing was observed every year now I rarely har of it.
Lockerbie is definitely still in the minds of the people here in the UK who are old enough to remember it. There's always a yearly remembrance service in Lockerbie and a remembrance week at Syracuse university, so hopefully it will never be forgotten.
Love those toy airplanes!✈️🛩️🛫😊😎
Flying the 707 on Pan Am got me hooked on travel and aviation. Truly miss that airline and era. Nice piece sir.
I love this history segment! Thank you, Kelsey.
Most folks don't know that Pan Am Corporation survived the loss of its airline division, and continued to operate its rail and petroleum holdings until June 2022, when it was finally bought out by CSX. Actually, most folks don't even know the *had* rail and petroleum divisions.
From Wikipedia…
“It was formerly known as Guilford Transportation Industries and was also known as Guilford Rail System. Guilford bought the name, colors, and logo of Pan American World Airways in 1998.”
@@HVACSoldier so guess it never *had* rail and petroleum divisions ;). A company bought the name and is doing business as, so Pan Am as we knew it in the 60s, 70, and 80s, never had anything to do with petroleum. Nice fact check!
@@BitwiseMobile Exactly. Pan Am sold their hotels, their building, their routes, and their planes. In the end, they sold their rights to the logo. I made a meme out of it. How an airline that was supposed to do flights into space by 2001, ended up devolving into rail, instead.
Not the same company. Logo and naming rights bought by Guilford Transportation in 1998.
One of the only remaining survivors of the Original Pan Am is the Pan Am Flight Academy
Kelsey, you missed the PanAm role in Europe after WW2. The allies decided that Lufthansa was not allowed to operate into Berlin and PanAm took up the role, flying in my youth (60/70’s) as I can remember with a lots of B727 flights from Berlin to Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munchen and also to other European destinations including Amsterdam where I used to see them daily. Still also remember the first ever B747, PanAm naturally, into Amsterdam that brought the Airport and surrounding roads to a standstill and got me even more exited on aviation. Fast forward to 2012 on 1 August and I had the honor now working for Emirates to be part of the official delegation to fly the first ever commercial A380 into Amsterdam. this again was a historic moment that brought the airport to a standstill. PanAm although I never flew them left a lasting impression on me.
@@robbroere1384 Not exactly. I believe there were three corridors, one American PanAm, one French Air France, one British BEA. I believe there were three max Flight Level in the corridors was FL100( 10,000 feet approximately). I had a PanAm guy jump seat with me that was a 727 FE based in Berlin. This had to be 1985 or later because that was when I first flew Captain at Tigers in the 727. This FE said “I’ll bet I’ve had more landings from the FE seat than you will ever have from the left seat”. In the Berlin Base they gave the FE landings from his seat. The FE would handle the throttles with his left hand ailerons and elevator with his right hand using the F/Os yoke, one of the pilots had to handle any rudder requirement.
Early long distance routes used flying boats because a piece of water could provide an airport landing strip without having to construct a runway. Most major destinations were at harbours. The circumstance that it provided infinite alternative emergency landing options was only a useful by product.
Great video, and spot on. I grew up with paa, my dad was also a pilot from 1955-1991. He loved every minute of those boeings and douglas ac. Enjoy your careers cuz they may tank before you know it.
This is golden, Kelsey! I love aviation and I love history. As you do with the other types of videos, in this history, you make what could be a very bland thing into something which is compelling. Love it!
BTW...
5:37 Some how "No business is to be conducted in the (Inter-)Continental!" comes to mind 🙂
We had some former Pan Am pilots at ATA, and they passed a lot of cool flying knowledge to us. Before that, my commuter job was with the Delta Connection, and I fondly remember flying into JFK at the crack of dawn, to that Pan Am terminal. They cooked up the best food downstairs in their employee cafeteria.
Thanks a million, Captain, for this superb episode. It brought back memories of my first international flight on our dear lamented Pan Am in 1961 - wearing high heels and white gloves. Those were the days, eh?
You are the best, Kelsey!
this aviation history lesson was a refreshing change of pace from your other videos. I hope you consider doing more like this in the future!
Excellent insight bro. It never occurred to me.
Btw that boiled owl comment still cracks me up esp how u played it off
Thanks for updating me on Pan Am history. I always wondered why Pan Am failed, inspite of best management and workers.
What an iconic airline. This was a great episode.
Thank you for all you do. I love your videos and appreciate the hard work you put in. 🙂
I remember those days. TWA, United Airlines. We got discounts on Air West cuz my father worked at Hughes aircraft company.
I found a TWA ticket jacket the other day in a box lol I don’t even know went
Hey Kelsey, great story on pan am, I flew from New York to Germany in 1957 in a constellation, I remember watching those props spinning forever! Then later in life I spent from 2017 to 2020 at Bagram airfield in Afghanistan as an electrician with the Fluor Corp. Spent many a day on the flight line watching everything you can imagine being off loaded from various 747 aircraft that had no marking on them at all, just plain white birds. Some were national 747s and they were marked, but I always wondered about the unmarked birds. Saw groceries, water, machinery, military stuff, building materials, anything needed to keep the military machine wheels greased and stocked came off many different 747s. Beautiful aircraft !
A brilliant video, and I was fortunate to fly on a Pan Am 747 from Heathrow to Teheran in 1971 and the whole experience was incomparable !
What a glorious format Kelsey...more history please!!
agree 100%
It's obvious how much work you put in!
Probably a great way to pass the time during his long haul flights to Europe or Asia
Good Sunday morning to you, Captain Kelsey from Chicago. I hope this day finds you well and happy, BROTHER !
KEEP THE BLUE SIDE UP ✈️🫡
Well, as long as the blue side is the sky and not the sea 😙
@@julosx 🤏🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You are correct when you say folks working there felt they were set for life! I started working there in 1988 fresh out of Aviation High School in NYC. I certainly thought that I was now setup for life! I also remember that phone message and I have a saved tape of that somewhere in my possesions. Thanks for the memories sir!
My father was a mechanic for Pan Am at SFO in the late 60s till he was transferred to Guam in the 70s. I completely remember those years flying from Guam to LAX or SFO. Having to wear my Church Clothes and sitting on Stand-by in Honolulu. As a 6-year old, flying in a 747 was like a fortress. I remember asking for Soda constantly from the really pretty lady dressed in blue. I remember the routine was my dad would have me sit on the seat next to the window with my dad sitting next to me. My mom and sister would sit on the middle 5 seats. At some point in the flight, my dad and mom would leave with me building my little fort on the 3 seats (ABC) and my sister would be asleep in the middle seats all spread out (she barely covered 2 seats but she had all 5. And for years I never knew where my parents went. Come to find out years later, my mom shared with me that Dad would talk to the Flight Attendants (Stewardesses) and they would sit up in First Class. FIRST CLASS!?!?!? While me and my sister sat in the back in Economy (but still felt really great with the food given compared to now). My mom said they would go upstairs and just have a grand old time while I was blowing air into the Pan Am supplied Headphones (they weren't wired) or constantly switch the channels to hear the different types of songs. To this day, I still love the smell of Jet Exhaust as it reminded me of my Dad.
This just made what I needed today!
In NYC Pan Am hooked with schools to give classes tours of their brand new 707. I remember going on a tour with my class in the late 50s.
I flew Pam Am as a teenager to Texas via New York in 1984, As i called it a double decker and there was only around 20 people on it including the crew and i was told i could sit anywhere i wanted big chairs and you could smoke your lungs out.
Great story-telling! Real inside stuff!
Pan Am kid here, grew up on their 727's. You are right - NOTHING today compares to even the Pan Am of the 80s, which had largely degraded in service from their highs in the 60s and 70s. When I fly, my carry on still sports that famous logo. Thank you for this video.
At the time of Lockabie, I was a manager at the Waldorf Hotel where the Pan-Am crews were put up for their overnight stays in London. It was a very somber time when we heard of the attack on the 747 flight.....
The actor David White, who played Larry Tate on the old TV show Bewitched, his son was on that plane.
I grew up about an hour north of Lockerbie and had friends from that village. The damage inflicted upon the people on the ground was horrific.
@@garyb6219 yes and it may have caused his premature death.
@@larrydavid6852 Oh my. Your name and my reply. Very strange coincidence.
This made me cry. I loved flying on PanAm! It was THE standard for excellence that all the other airlines were jealous to have! Thanks Kelsey! Great post!
Very well done & you're right, the "crash" often comes seemingly in moments....
Thanks for this video. I’m an a United Airlines brat and distinctly remember the golden era of jet travel coming to an end. Brings me back to a simpler time in my life.
Yes, more history content please! Thanks, Kelsey. I know it takes a bit more effort than the react content but it is so much more fun to watch!
Also, that lady in the bikini underneath a fur coat cracked me up. It was a different time.
I remember flying on Pan Am back and forth to Europe in the mid-1970s and they really took great care of their customers, they took pride in their business and it showed. I miss those days when flying was fun.
Eastern please... I got my dream job at 19 fueling the A300, 747 and the L1011s.... My brother called me at midnight and ask did I know we were out of business... "Oh, We have been out of business for years".
Frank Lorenzo screwed both Eastern & Continental (Texas Air Corp).
@@bodyloverz30Frank Lorenzo is the anti-Christ but it wasn’t just him that destroyed Eastern. Charlie Bryan was a big factor is Eastern’s demise as well
@@JackieO_LAX Let's add the unions to the mix as well. Everyone killed Eastern, based on their collective actions; which include labor & management.
@@bodyloverz30 right, that’s why I mentioned Charlie Bryan
My Pan Am experience was in March of 1974. I had finished my Army two year tour in Bamberg and along with about half a dozen other guys got bumped off our military charter flight back to the US. The next day we were taken to the civilian side of the airport and put on Pan Am Flight One.
The fun part was Mohammad Ali was lounging in a first class seat when we boarded, and when everyone got off the plane in London for a while he came over and shot the breeze with us for a while. I have a Pan Am Flight One boarding pass with his autograph from that.
The not so great part for me was even though coach seats had more room then when I looked around the plane cabin it felt like I was in a herd of cattle. And since my pay had been stopped to make sure I had some money at discharge, I did not have money for the earphones, and let me tell you Woody Allan's movie Sleeper makes absolutely not sense without sound.
Great story, I still have my "Pan Am" branded luggage I bought at Montgomery/Wards Store in the late 70's. Sure wish (with you,) we could all just go back to those days. They were great times for many of us.
Greetings from Scotland, Captain Kelsey. I remember the Lockerbie air crash well. Such a shocking loss of life. A garden of remembrance now marks the site of the crash. As for Pan Am. I used to watch their beautiful planes landing at Glasgow in the '70s, and dreaming of flying away in one of them to some far off place. They always stood out, they were so cool looking and their flight crews, immaculate. I hope that, one day, someone, or a group, will figure a way to bring it back. The whole aviation industry is poorer because of their absence.