The
Jet Age
In
1955 Pan Am ordered 45 jet airliners, 20 Boeing 707s and 25
Douglas dc8s for $269 million. Pan Am only received 18 of those
DC8s and ordered 130 more from Boeing.
Until
realistic flight simulators were introduced in the late 60s Pan
Am pilots took all their training in actual planes, many times
in dangerous flying conditions.
October 26, 1958 entered the jet age with a B707-121 named
Clipper America. It flew from NY to Paris with 111 passengers
and 11 crewmembers for 8 ? hours including a fuel stop at
Gander. This flight allowed the introduction of jets and economy
fares.
In
jet engines unlike piston engines, all parts spun in the same
direction. Eliminating vibration and decreased frequency of
engine failure.
A
once profitable airline, 1961?s annual report boasted $460
million in revenues. In 1970 Pan Am carried 11 million
passengers approximately twenty billion miles, and employed
19,000 people in 62 countries.
January
1980 Pan Am merged with National Airlines. Due to the high price
of acquiring National, the purchase was considered Chairman ‘Seawell’s
Folly".
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Juan Trippe Cocktail Party
Juan Trippe and the name Pan Am were synonymous for forty
years, 1927 – 1968. He was
not
necessary liked
by all but was respected by
most. There were two eras during Pan Am existence: the
prop era and the jet era.
America’s jet age began on
the evening of October 26, 1958, when a Boeing 707
inaugurated Pan Am’s first New York to Paris flight. There
was as much coverage and excitement about this flight as
that of the " China Clipper" flight 23 years before. It
came about when Trippe, with out the rest of the airline
industry knowing, negotiated with Boeing and Douglas
aircraft companies, I should say pitted one company
against the other to produce the best jet aircraft. He
also cajoled Pratt & Whitney for better and more powerful
engines to place on these aircraft. In the end, Pan Am
ordered 21 Boeing 707s and 24 Douglas DC-8 aircraft. This
order was kept secret from the media and airline industry.
On the evening of October 15,1955, Trippe hosted a
cocktail party for members of the International Air
Transport Association (IATA) executive committee in his
Gracie Square apartment in Manhattan. Everyone was having
a drink and a grand time enjoying themselves while
admiring the view of the East River. The airline
executives were patting themselves on the back, because
they had secured orders for turbo-prop aircraft for their
airlines to replace their propeller fleets. It was at this
party that Trippe announced that Pan American was going
all jet. Trippe had just forced the jet age upon them,
without warning. His guest
were stunned and as they grasped the importance of this
announcement, they all fell silent. They just realized
they had been had, their propeller fleets were obsolete.
Now they understood why Trippe had not ordered more
propeller planes. All the other airlines would be forced
to dump their propeller planes at discounted prices, and
take a bath in the process. It was like dropping the
mother of all bombs on this gathering. It was as if
someone deposited a
foreign object in the punch bowl and no one wanted a drink
anymore. For
most of the guest, the taste of the drinks turned sour and
the gourmet hors d’ oeuvres were left uneaten and the
party atmosphere turned sullen. Guest left and returned to
their hotels to book space on the next day’s flights to
Seattle (Boeing) and Santa Monica (Douglas). They wanted
to reserve places on the jet production lines, behind Pan
American.
Don Cooper
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