Pan Am clipper, Vol. 2, No. 9, December 1976

              Volume 2 Number 9
Bahrain
station
added
By Janies A. Arey
Pan Am’s sturdy fleet of 747SPs prepared this month to take on Bahrain to the growing list of long-haul cities served by the airline which is fast building a reputation as the carrier with “the longest legs in the business.”
The “longest legs” slogan began appearing in newspaper and magazine ads shortly after Pan Am an: nounced it would begin once-a-week nonstop flights with the SP between New York and Bahrain— a distance of 6,601 miles—effective December 6.
“For the first time ever, you can fly from New York to the oil in Bahrain without having to refuel along the way,” was the lead line in the ad on Pan Am Flight 20 and 21.
Other nonstops
Two days later, on December 8, Pan Am’s 747SP will inaugurate nonstop service between San Francisco and Auckland—6,525 miles—twice a week. Flight 815 will continue to Sydney. The turnaround trip, Flight 816, will operate back through Auckland on one of the two days but on the other it will go Sydney-San Francisco direct—7,475 miles—a feat which is aviation’s granddaddy of nonstop scheduled flights.
Thus, Bahrain, Sydney and Auckland join New York-Tokyo (6,778 miles), Los Angeles-Tokyo (5,478) and New York-Rio (4,816) on Pan Am’s major nonstop routes in the 4,000-mile-plus category.
Bahrain, a new station for Pan Am, will be staffed by some personnel who held key jobs for Pan Am in Beirut before suspension of service to that Lebanese city caused by the civil war there. Donald E. Taylor, Area Director in that part of the world, said the Bahrain operations would be under the direction of Hadi Eid, Director Saudi Arabia and The Gulf.
Subhi Hawa, formerly Manager
As President F.C. Wiser nears the end of his first year with the company, Clipper 76 joined the chief operating officer in an interview to discuss Pan Am and its outlook for 1977. See page 7.
Services in Beirut, will be assigned the same function in Bahrain, and Charles Nasir, formerly Manager Maintenance in Beirut, will handle the maintenance chores in Bahrain.
Others include Hassan Mokdad as service representative and Jean Khalise, Area Cargo Manager based in Dhahran, will travel to Bahrain once a week to supervise Flight 20/21’s cargo operation.
Taylor said he would be on site for the month of December until the operation was well underway.
Continued on page 3
William T.Seawell
December 1, 1976
There have been lots of ups and downs since I joined the Pan Am family five years ago this month. Among the most frustrating of the downs was the fuel crisis that killed our 1973 comeback. And the combination of fuel problems, general inflation and worldwide recession produced a bad 1974 and a retarded 1975. And the thing that still gives us all least satisfaction is the continuing requirement to place so many of our number on furlough.
Yet, our general trend remains up, not down. We all know the trend won't continue by itself. We have to make it happen. And we need to have reasonable economic conditions, including reasonable stable fuel'prices. Given those, I think we shall be able to look back on 1976 as the year we began to get where we want to be.
So we have special reason to wish one another a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I send Season's Greetings to the fine Pan Am team worldwide.
Chairman’s Column
Have a question for Chairman Seawell?
In upcoming issues of Clipper, a "Chairman’s Column” will appear from time to time, in which Chairman Seawell will discuss issues raised by employees in their letters to Clipper 77 editor.
Any and all topics affecting Pan Am, its operations and employees will be covered. Letters may be addressed to Chairman Seawell, care of Clipper 77 editor, Room 4524, Pan Am Building, 200 Park Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10017, or simply to the Clipper 77 editor.
Detroit-Boston service begins
By Jay Beau-Seigneur
On November 11, 1976, Pan American World Airways became a domestic airline.
For the first time in Pan Am’s 49-year history, passengers could board a Jet Clipper in a U.S. city and conclude their journey in another U.S. city within the contiguous 48 states.
This first step, allowing Pan Am to carry passengers on its flights between Boston and Detroit, is the first in what the company hopes will be the right to carry domestic passengers on all U.S. sectors of international routes.
The casual observer in Detroit probably wouldn’t have noticed any difference between the November 11 departure and an earlier one, for Pan Am has been flying from Detroit to Boston for almost all of the past 15-year period. The route isn’t new, but the fact that passengers can fly solely between the two cities is.
Everyone but the London weatherman cooperated for the inaugural, with Flight 55 having a late departure out of London and causing a rolling delay on other sectors of the flight. Of the 68 passengers on board Flight 55 from Boston to Detroit, 13 had boarded the aircraft in Boston.
Flight 55 provided another Pan Am first, too. The flight carried 84 kilos of Pan Am’s first domestic mail, which was boarded in Boston westbound. The Detroit staff put forth maximum effort to cut the delay time and was able to turn the aircraft around in 50 minutes with
a complete offload and onload of cargo, a complete cabin cleaning and grooming, and a complete catering. Flight 54 left Detroit with 18 passengers bound for Boston and another 66 destined for Europe as well as 1,036 kilos of Pan Am’s first domestic cargo.
On board the flight was Paul Murphy, Pan Am’s first “domestic” passenger, so dubbed be-
Pan Am files for $50 standby fare on DTW-BOS route. See story, page 2.
cause he was the first person to have a confirmed reservation for either of the flight sectors on Nov. 11. He had arrived in Detroit the previous day, and ironically, his reservation was made by American Airlines, Pan Am’s chief competitor on the route.
Murphy, a resident of Medford, Mass., is a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Lowell, on a consulting basis from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Detroit Director Barbara Schick and Director John Priestley presented Murphy with a Pan Am flight bag filled with French red and white wines, a digital desk clock, and a copy of the Encyclopedia of Travel.
The Flight 54 crew consisted of Captain Ben Johnson, First Officer Dino Vlahakis, and Flight7 Engineer Marvin Rosenthal. The flight Continued on page 2
Route Swap passes CAB
The Civil Aeronautics Board has asked the White House to approve a recommendation that the route swap between Pan Am and Trans World Airlines remain in effect through March 2, 1978.
The decision affirmed the recommendation of a CAB administrative law judge and also the Board’s earlier approval of the agreement that has been in effect since early 1975.
A federal appeals court had ruled that the CAB failed to hold the required public hearings on the swap and remanded the case to the Board, which conducted expedited proceedings.
In the meantime, Pan Am was ordered to suspend service to Taipei and Okinawa. Pan Am will resume service to those points as soon as possible after White House action.
The CAB rejected pleas of Northwest, which had filed a complaint against the route swap, that the Okinawa/Taiwan service be Continued on page 3
Public Relations photographer Paul Friend was scouting the Worldport at JFK recently looking for a good Christmas photo for CLIPPER 76 when he ran across this gentleman doing a little first echelon maintenance on Flight 100 before its departure to London. Job completed, the old gentleman returned to his routine work in the JFK Carpenter Shop . . . yes, Carpenter Shop. . . where he is known to his friends as Al Barton. Al joins with the CLIPPER 76 staff in wishing all Pan American employees best wishes for the holiday season and New Year.