Why Did Pan Am Fail? The Airline That Took Reservations for the Moon

The story

Why did Pan Am fail? More than 93,000 people signed up for Pan Am's first flights to the Moon. Twenty years later, the airline that defined the jet age was gone.

This is the story of Pan Am: the Key West mail route, the Clipper flying boats, the first American jet across the Atlantic, the Boeing 747 bet, the First Moon Flights Club, the National Airlines merger, the sale of its crown jewels, and the end in December 1991.

Three lessons

1. 1

   Build your base before you go global. Pan Am conquered the world, but had no home market to fall back on.

2. 2

   Selling your best assets to pay the bills only buys time. Once they're gone, they're gone.

3. 3

   A famous brand is not a business plan. Everyone knew Pan Am. Not enough people flew it.

Chapters

1. 0:00Intro
2. 0:29The mail route
3. 0:54The Clippers
4. 1:23The jet age
5. 1:56The jumbo bet
6. 2:34Reservations for the Moon
7. 3:08Selling the crown jewels
8. 3:55The last years
9. 4:39Three lessons

Sources

Every fact in this file is checked against published sources before release. See our standards.

• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the First Moon Flights Club (over 93,000 cards, 1968 to 1971)
• Smithsonian Air & Space, the 707 flight that changed everything (Oct 26, 1958, New York to Paris)
• U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, Pan Am history (Oct 19, 1927 first flight, Clippers, 747)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Pan American World Airways (1936 Pacific, 1939 Atlantic, 1947 round the world, 1991 bankruptcy and shutdown)
• The Pan Am Museum, the Boeing 747 (25 ordered in 1966, first passenger flight Jan 22, 1970)
• Pan Am Historical Foundation, the Pan Am Building (1963, sold to MetLife for $400 million)
• Airways Magazine, Pan Am acquires National Airlines ($437 million)
• Airways Magazine, United buys Pan Am's Pacific Division ($750 million)
• Hospitality ON, InterContinental history (sold to Grand Metropolitan for $500 million in 1981)
• Delta Flight Museum, Pan Am (routes and shuttle acquired in 1991)
• Deseret News, Dec 5, 1991, Pan Am grounded permanently (about 7,500 jobs)