Pan American World Airways, Inc.
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Product Details
Certificate Type
Capital Stock
Date Issued
1950's, 1960's and 1970's
Canceled
Yes
Printer
American Bank Note Company
Signatures
Machine printed
Approximate Size
12" (w) by 8" (h)
Additional Details
NA
Historical Context
Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal international airline of the United States from the 1930's until its collapse in 1991. Originally founded as a seaplane service out of Key West, Florida, the airline became a major company credited with many innovations that shaped the international airline industry, including the widespread use of jet aircraft, jumbo jets, and computerized reservation systems. Identified by its blue globe logo and the use of the word "Clipper" in aircraft names and call signs, the airline was a cultural icon of the 20th century, and the unofficial flag carrier of the United States.
The Pan Am brand was resurrected twice after 1991, although the reincarnations were related to Pan Am, and each other, in name only. The first operated from 1996 to 1998, with a focus on low-cost, long-distance flights between the U.S. and the Caribbean. It used the IATA airline designator PN. The second was a small regional carrier based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that operated between 1998 and 2004. It used the IATA code PA, and the ICAO code PAA. Boston-Maine Airways, a sister company of the second reincarnation, still operates the "Pan Am Clipper Connection" brand.
History
Pan American Airways Incorporated was founded on March 14, 1927, by Major Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and partners. Their shell company was able to obtain the U.S. mail delivery contract to Cuba, but lacked the physical assets to do the job. On June 2, 1927, Juan Trippe formed the Aviation Corporation of America with the backing of powerful and politically-connected financiers William A. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, and others; Whitney served as the company's president. Their operation had the all-important landing rights for Havana, having acquired a small airline established in 1926 by John K. Montgomery and Richard B. Bevier as a seaplane service from Key West, Florida to Havana. The Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean Airways company was established on October 11, 1927, by New York City investment banker Richard Hoyt, who served as president. The three companies merged into a holding company called the Aviation Corporation of the Americas on June 23, 1928. Richard Hoyt was named as chairman of the new company, but Trippe and his partners held forty percent of the equity and Whitney was made president. Trippe became the operational head of the new Pan American Airways Incorporated, created as the primary operating subsidiary of Aviation Corporation of the Americas.
The U.S. government had approved the original Pan Am's mail delivery contract with little objection, out of fears that the German-owned Colombian carrier SCADTA (nowadays Avianca) would have no competition in bidding for routes between Latin America and the United States. The government further helped Pan Am by insulating it from its American competitors, seeing the airline as the "chosen instrument" for U.S. foreign air routes. The airline expanded, due in part to its virtual monopoly on foreign airmail contracts.
Trippe and his associates planned to extend Pan Am's network through all of Central and South America. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Pan Am purchased a number of ailing or defunct airlines in Central and South America, and negotiated with postal officials to win most of the government's airmail contracts to the region. In September 1929, Trippe toured Latin America with Charles Lindbergh to negotiate landing rights in a number of countries, including SCADTA's home turf of Colombia. By the end of the year, Pan Am offered flights down the west coast of South America to Peru. The following year, Pan Am purchased the New York