Pan Am Sold Tickets to the Moon. Then It Vanished.

In 1968, Pan Am started taking reservations for flights to the Moon. More than 93,000 people signed up. Twenty-three years later, the most famous airline in the world was gone. This is the story of Pan American World Airways: from a 90-mile hop between Key West and Havana, to Clipper flying boats across the Pacific, the first jumbo jets, a skyscraper over Grand Central, and then a jumbo-sized bet, a merger that went wrong, a fire sale of everything it owned, Lockerbie, the Gulf War, and the last flight into Miami on December 4, 1991. ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 Final call 1:05 The World Airline 2:53 Tickets to the Moon 3:54 The Jumbo Trap 5:46 Selling the Furniture 7:19 The Last Clipper 9:44 Arrivals 📚 SOURCES • Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: the First Moon Flights Club • Wikipedia: Pan Am (and the reports it cites) • Ask the Pilot (Patrick Smith): The Fall of Pan Am, 30 Years Later • JPB Trans Consulting: The Last Clipper (account of Flight 436) Figures are approximate and as reported. 🎞 CREDITS Stock video: Pexels (Pexels License). CC-licensed photos via Wikimedia Commons: • "N736PA Clipper Victor Pan Am Boeing 747-121, London Heathrow" — Paul Seymour, CC BY-SA 4.0 • "Boeing 747-100 (Pan Am) (8664189574)" — MercerMJ, CC BY-SA 2.0 • "FRANKFURT 05 OCT 1989 PAN AM BOEING 747 N656PA" — simon butler, CC BY 2.0 • "Pan Am Boeing 747-121; N744PA@FRA, June 1991 DVH (5287989487)"; "Pan Am Lockheed L-1011 TriStar 500; N503PA, July 1987 (6083606391)" — Aero Icarus, CC BY-SA 2.0 • "Boeing 747 Pan Am 1976" — Project Kei, CC BY-SA 4.0 • "Pan Am Boeing 747-121 N736PA at Sydney" — Rob Russell, CC BY 2.0 • "Boeing 707-321B N421PA Pan American World Airways (Pan Am)"; "National Airlines DC-10 (6074172759)"; "Pan Am DC-10-10 (6068611382)" — clipperarctic, CC BY-SA 2.0 • "Pan-American Terminal NY (5275821253)" — Ethan, CC BY 2.0 • "Pan Am Building in NYC" — Gordon Bevan, CC BY-SA 2.0 • "First Moon Flights Club Front"; "First Moon Flights Club Back"; "First Moon Flights Club Letter" — Pan American World Airways (collection upload), CC BY 4.0 • "Remembrance Garden, Lockerbie - geograph.org.uk - 6126044"; "Remembrance Garden, Lockerbie - geograph.org.uk - 6126033"; "Road to Lockerbie passing Dryfesdale Cemetery - geograph.org.uk - 4066446" — Billy McCrorie, CC BY-SA 2.0 • "N368PA GVA 17.04.1985 JL ALTHERR" — Jean-Luc Altherr, CC BY-SA 4.0 Public-domain / CC0 images via Wikimedia Commons: "Pan Am (Boeing 747)"; "Pan Am Boeing 747SP Takeoff"; "Boeing 747 rollout (1)"; "Boeing 747 rollout (6)"; "Three Pan Am Boeing 707 awaiting delivery"; "China Clipper over San Francisco"; "China Clipper"; "Martin 130 China Clipper at Pearl Harbor 1930s"; "Passengers boarding Pan-Am Airways Fokker airplane, 1928"; "Interior view of a Pan Am Sikorsky S-43A (Baby Clipper)"; "Juan Trippe receiving permits for 1937 PAA trans-Atlantic fights"; "Juan Trippe with Stratocruiser"; "Pan Am Worldport overview"; "Grand Central shadowed by Pan-Am"; "Pan Am Building in New York City"; "NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise"; "Apollo 11 Launch - GPN-2000-000630"; "Governor Ronald Reagan campaigning for Republican presidential nomination"; "The Beatles arrive at JFK Airport"; "Jimmy Carter signs Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 - NARA - 182032"; "F-14A VF-84 over burning Kuwaiti oil wells 1991"; "President Ronald Reagan Holds a Model Airplane in The Oval Office with Pan Am Press Airplane Crew and Stewardesses - DPLA - 9883b6b52e8365df73ac32e5936409af"; "Pilot and Cockpit Crew on Board a Pan Am Aircraft Carrying Press Corps Members en Route to Shanghai, China - DPLA - dfd48ef08ea2531dbcdc1ac71fa3daef"; "PanAm Map Poster (18857327463)". Licenses: creativecommons.org/licenses Boarding passes, departure boards and route maps are original illustrations. Map base: NASA Visible Earth (public domain). Music and sound design: original. In memory of the 270 people killed in the Lockerbie bombing on December 21, 1988. For education and commentary. Not affiliated with Pan Am, its current trademark owners, Boeing, Delta, United or any company mentioned. #PanAm #AviationHistory #BusinessHistory #Documentary