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Pan Am: I love the brand, but not the memories

Simon Calder’s Travel

Pan Am is a remarkable brand. Thirty-three years after the greatest US airline of the 20th century collapsed, the logo of Pan American World Airways is still instantly recognisable – with smart and cool branded clothing available online from a warehouse near you.

Yet Pan Am is only a brand: any connection with actually flying passengers around the world vanished decades ago. So the news that a chartered Boeing 757 will be β€œtracing the transatlantic voyage” for 50 high-net-worth individuals next summer has caused some excitement.

Could the glory days of aviation be coming back? Spoiler alert: no.

In the decade leading up to the collapse of Pan Am in 1991, I was a regular customer of the airline. Laker Airways brought affordable fares to the North Atlantic. But the established airlines – British Airways, TWA and Pan Am – hit back by cutting their fares to match Sir Freddie’s.

Pay Β£82 for a no-frills Laker Airways DC-10 flight from London Gatwick to New York JFK, or the same amount for a Boeing 747 from Heathrow? Many times, I chose the latter. From 1982 onwards, Laker Airways was not an option, since Sir Freddie had been forced out of business.

In 1984, Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic showed what flying could be, but those of us who were price-sensitive opted for the lowest fare. Which, as Pan Am struggled against competition at home and abroad, was frequently on one of the β€œClipper” Jumbo jets.

Compared with a trip across the Atlantic on any airline today, it was a lousy experience. One of the worst breakfasts I have ever seen was served on an overnight Pan Am flight from JFK to Heathrow: a grey and threatening omelette and sausage combo that appeared to have been made in a munitions factory.

I am sorry to say I was in the smoking area, which was as disgusting as you might imagine. In-flight entertainment comprised one film, projected onto a screen on the bulkhead, for which you had to pay Β£3 for a plastic stethoscope which you plugged into the seat. Glamour score? Zero.

The same applied within Germany, which was one part of the world where Pan Am thrived through the 1980s. Under the terms of the Allied division of Germany at the end of the Second World War, Lufthansa was not allowed to operate domestically to and from West Berlin. So anyone wishing to fly from the divided city to West Germany would need to travel on…

Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Independent Travel…