Airliner World – April 2018

http://www.airlinerworld.com 45

In the

Spotlight

This

month's

airport and

just how

spotty it is

for spotters

Interview

with a senior

executive in

the airline

industry.

given the phenomenal growth seen in
the Latin American market over the last
decade, would ‘Pan Am II’ have been a
success if Delta had decided to support
your business plan?
RR: Yes! One of the best things that
Eastern did was acquire the old Braniff
South American routes. They were
money makers, along with its Eastern Air
Shuttle brand [which provided business
and government travel in the northeast
corridor of the US, linking New York,
Boston, Washington DC and Newark].
Those were two solid profit centres.
Now back in those days, Eastern wasn’t
making a lot of money down in the lower
Antilles, but I saw it improve. I thought
Delta was making a serious mistake by

saying: “Look, you can have all that Latin

American stuff, we don’t want it.” Then

they dropped Pan Am and gave up on

what I felt was a lucrative opportunity.

Delta would have had 45% ownership in

the surviving Pan Am and I believe this

was a serious error of judgment.

Of course, then we started recording neg-

ative cash flows – when I joined we were

losing $3m a day, and when I left this had

dropped to $1m. You just can’t survive

on that. Travel agents were running out

of the door, and although a lot of people

were encouraging us, alas they weren’t

buying tickets. Delta stayed with us until

two weeks before we filed for reorganisa-

tion then they backed out. I’m very bitter

about that, they gave us just two weeks to

get things done.

AW: It sounds like Delta left you in a tight

corner with little room to manoeuvre?

RR: Yes, you’re right. We thought the

reorganisation plan had a sufficient

handle on costs. As I recall, we couldn’t

assume profitability in the first or second

year, but things looked more encouraging

for year three. But that causes doubts.

If you haven’t been able to make money

within a two-year span, then how could

we prove that the future looked more

promising? It’s very much like the

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.

On January 21, 1970

Pan Am inaugurated

the first commercial

flight of the Boeing

747, the type becoming

affectionately regarded

as the Queen of

the Skies.

AIRTEAMIMAGES.COM/

BOB O’BRIEN COLLECTION

Boeing 737-214,

N382PA (c/n 19921)

began its life with

Pacific Southwest

Airlines in 1968 and

was delivered to Pan

Am in 1982. All but

one of the 16 737-200s

wore the traditional

blue cheat line with

Pan Am titles in black

type. AIRTEAMIMAGES.

COM/DIRK GROTHE