Pan Am clipper, Vol. 22, No. 13, July 5, 1971

              by Larry Marthaler and Greg Swofford


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Saigon
War is, well ...
They’d choose a buddy, stuff his suitcase with thousands of dollars and send him off to buy 50 or 100 tickets to ‘the world” at the nearest Pan Am sales office.
It’s not easy to buy an airplane ticket home when you’re out manning a fire base or are elsewhere on the front lines in Vietnam.
But you still want to get home, the place fighting men here call “the world.” No soldier wants to waste his 14-day annual leave in “Nam.” Certainly not since the Department of Defense began to permit servicemen and women to spend it in the States.
No one had to tell Pan Am. The airline has operated eight ticket offices throughout Viet-
nam since early (196l*whe1ri the Department of Defense directed the carrier to represent the airline industry and sell transportation on all airlines.
The real sales challenge, however, came last November.
With the okay for leaves in the States, over
160.000	servicemen immediately became eligible to fly home. Monthly phone calls in Pan Am’s Saigon office alone jumped from around
6.000	to 54,000 in November and to 56,000 in December. Servicemen queued up 300 deep outside the front door. They were clamoring for $350 roundtrip charter tickets to the west coast of the U.S.
It was tough to satisfy the demand at first. Flights were few. Then the charter airlines, World and Trans International, and Pan Am
increased the number of flights. At the same time tours of duty were shortened and troop reductions were escalated.
There were plenty of aircraft, however, and now the GI could choose his carrier, departure date and destination—where before he gratefully grabbed what was available.
The fight for customers was on.
Yet how do you attract customers when you can’t advertise in Stars and Stripes and on Armed Forces radio and television? And how do you get the message across with inadequate mail service and transportation?
Answer: Go to the GI wherever he is. That’s exactly what Pan Am did, and it turned out to be one of the most exciting chapters in the airline’s history.
please turn to page 2
lower fares for everyone
(almost)
Montreal—Pan Am is pressing for a new transatlantic fare package that would include lower fares for nearly every type of vacation traveler at the meeting of the Intercontinental Air Transport Association under way here.
Key elements of Pan Am’s proposal are:
Advance purchase excursion fare—A low-cost fare ($200 New York-London, $240 in peak season) available to anyone traveling for 22-60 days provided full payment and firm reservations are made three months in advance. A refund penalty would be charged, but insurance policies against cancellation due to illness, etc. would be available.
Youth fare—One-way fare available to any point in Europe for youths aged 17-22. For example, $99 New York-London. Reservations permitted within seven days of departure.
Senior citizens’ fare—Available to any point in Europe for persons 65 years of age or over (for example, $198 roundtrip from New York) but must be purchased three months in advance.
Group inclusive tour fare—For groups of 15 or more who purchase a tour package. This fare would be lowered from current levels.
For example, the basic New York-London fare would be $200 roundtrip, instead of $237 roundtrip.
In addition to the above low-cost fares, Pan Am’s fare package calls for cancellation of the present 29-45 day excursion fare and amending the 17-28 day excursion fare to its original validity of 14-21 days. The proposal
Why the wide-sweeping fare proposals now? “More and more people are being attracted to charters by low fares. We’ve got the seats. We needed to stop the drift,” says John Champion, Pan Am’s director-IATA.
calls for this fare to remain at the present level ($322 roundtrip New York-London).
Normal first class and economy class fares would remain at present levels ($782 first class roundtrip between New York and London, and $452 economy class).
Affinity group and incentive fares would be reduced to approximately $200 New York-London roundtrip.
The IATA meeting in Montreal will set transatlantic fares effective April 1, 1972.