44 AIRLINER WORLD APRIL 2018
In the
Spotlightearly weeks. We had recruited a very
competent team of people to create the
plan to be presented to the court. We had
to work quickly to meet the December
deadline. So, my early impressions were
that we had to move quickly, and we had
to improve morale.AW: In your view, what killed Pan Am?
There are many critics who blame the
large order for Boeing 747s in the middle
1960s, while others blame the ill-fated
National Airlines’ merger. What are your
thoughts?
RR: Well, I’d put both of those issues in
the mix. Clearly not being able to operate
a domestic network to feed its
international routes, and poor results
from its merger with National were
major factors in the carrier’s eventual
demise. Then there was Juan Trippe’s
(the founder of Pan Am) appetite for new
aircraft such as the 747 – he always had
to be the first [to operate them]. But to
me, these weren’t the dominant causes, in
my opinion, it was the company’s failure
to convince the Civil Aviation Board that it
needed to have a domestic operation to
feed into its international network.
We had Trippe competing with Howard
Hughes for domestic awards, which
unsurprisingly all went to Trans
World Airlines (TWA). So, here
you have a situation that
was created by regulation,where Pan Am had its hands tied. And
then 1978 comes along, and deregulation
opened opportunities for the airline to
launch domestic services, but alas this
was too late.
So, the irony is, regulation created the
problem and deregulation exacerbated
it. These factors and many others all
contributed to a weak balance sheet that
meant by 1978 Pan Am just couldn’t
compete any longer.AW: Were you looking at a 60-aircraft
fleet with a mix of 747s and Airbus
A300s feeding passengers from New
York to Miami?
RR: Yes, that is how the plan looked.
When Pan Am failed, Delta took on all
the A310s, which as it turned out was
not a great transatlantic aircraft. We
had some 747s in the mix and some
Airbuses.
AW: Hindsight is a wonderful thing. ButPan Am Founder and
President Juan Trippe
using his office globe
(now on display in the
Smithsonian Museum)
to plan the airline's
expansion around
the world.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONSThe 59-storey Pan
Am Building in lower
Manhattan, New York
was once the world's
largest commercial
office space at
2,400,000sq ft
(222,968m²), equal
to nearly 42 football
pitches.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS