Pan Am clipper, Vol. 14, No. 7, September 1988

              ■
i

Operation 800 Nets 1093 New Flight Attendants
Pan Am’s latest round of Flight Attendant recruitment ended on July 25th with the graduation of 49 Silver Wingers from the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Miami. Their graduation brought to an end an effort that had begun 10 months and 25 days earlier when Pan Am ran its first newspaper ads for new Flight Attendants in New York, Miami, Seattle and Minneapolis-St. Paul on September 20th. The first interviews were conducted on September 28th and the first class of trainees arrived at the Flight Academy two weeks later.
“It’s a project that we all look back on with tremendous satisfaction,” said Amie Paroz, Pan Am’s Director Flight Service Recruitment and Training. “It was a monumental effort that kept us running seven days a week and often 16 hours a day,” she said.
When Amie received the word from the Pan Am Building to begin recruiting at least 800 new Flight Attendants, she named the project ‘Operation 800’ — not because of the number of flight attendants being sought, but because of the toll-free 800 telephone number implemented to assist in the effort. Newspaper ads instructed qualified applicants to call the 800 number, which was answered at Flight Service Headquarters in Miami. The candidate’s name and telephone number was then passed along to one of the recruiters from Flight Service. The recruitment team consisted of active line Flight Attendants and Pursers as well as a number of former Flight Attendants and Flight Service management employees who served as consultants to the recruitment program. Recruiters called applicants back and verified their basic qualifications and scheduled them for initial interviews in their own hometowns.
w

IT’S THAT MAGIC MOMENT when you feel like you’re walking on air. On graduation day, Flight Attendant Adair Cothran receives her silver wings from class instructor Joan Nell Bernstein, a Miami-based Purser.
“The facts and figures of Operation 800 are impressive,” said Amie Paroz. We received nearly 79,000 inquiries from interested candidates. We conducted a total of 17,075 interviews in 81 cities across the United States. Our recruiters logged nearly 850,000 airline miles and spent a combined total of 5,000 room-nights in hotels.” continued on page 7
Taking The Lead!
i

The line at the Dulles counter frequently backs up to the sidewalk with passengers checking in for Paris, London and Frankfurt. To the casual observer, it may appear to be pure bedlam. To Jack Neroda, it is another day at the office— another day on the job as a Pan Am Lead Agent at IAD.
Story on page 2

mivAivi
CUPPER
VOL 14 NO 7
SEPTEMBER 1988
ATC Delays Plague Skies over Europe
By Conrad R. Jacoby General Manager— IGS and Central Europe
After having become a serious impediment to on-time performance in 1987, the air traffic control system in Germany has reached crisis proportions, particularly at Munich and Frankfurt. On May 26th of this year, Lufthansa was forced to cancel 27 flights in and out of Munich because of ATC problems. Some Lufthansa officials were fearing a total collapse at Munich during the peak summer season. Pan Am’s on-time performance on the Munich-Berlin sector dropped to 43 percent in May, causing more than 54 hours of delays out of Munich alone, not including delayed arrivals due to holding patterns or spillover delays onto other sectors such as Berlin and Frankfurt. In June, the Munich on-time performance was 51 percent, dropping the IGS system performance to 78 percent for the month compared with an 81 percent performance in 1987.
The ATC crisis in Germany can be traced to three major causes.
Increased Congestion Of German Airports And Airspace
Frequencies of both scheduled and chartered services at major German airports have increased substantially. Volume is up as much as 18 percent over 1987, after a similar increase the previous year, and a further doubling is expected in the next decade. Equally problematic are higher v olumes of priority-routed overflying traffic (particularly between Scandinavia and Southern Europe — cited as the primary cause of the May 26 Lufthansa breakdown), as well as traditionally intensive military activity, both by the German Luftwaffe as well as various NATO forces. These three factors are compounded at Munich airport by a large and growing volume of private aircraft having to share the single runway with the airline jets.
Fragmented And Uncoordinated ATC/ Limited Rights For German Traffic Through Other Countries.
Each country within Europe (and often each major region within each country) has its own independent ATC and will determine its own routing priorities, with short-term variations.
For example, other countries place strict quotas
on the volume of overflying traffic. On the northern route over Britain/Holland, which is crucial to Transatlantic sectors, German flights are limited to 9 or 10 per hour instead of the necessary 12 due to lacking ATC capacity. Personnel shortages have also led to intermittent restrictions by French authorities. This fragmented ATC network, distorted by local problems and parochial interests, is a basic structural deficiency with no solution in sight.
Local Air Traffic Controller Issues
The entire German ATC system suffers from historically poor pay and equipment, neglected training, understaffing and a lack of personnel
development. Frustration and ill-will are high while motivation and productivity are low. At Munich, compensation is still below standard after pay raises were granted only grudgingly and after much delay.
Long-Term Solutions
It should be clear that any serious, long-term solutions to German/European ATC problems are going to haye to be political and industrywide rather than technical and airline-specific. The following four long-term solutions need to be pursued at the appropriate political level and should have Pan Am support, continued on page 6
Success And Dedication To Service Mark Second Anniversary Of Pan Am Shuttle
The Pan Am Shuttle marks its second anniversary on October 1. From the beginning, the Shuttle had one very basic strategy: to provide a quality service product and exceptional schedule reliability. That sounds simple enough, but in today’s environment of increasing consumer criticism of the air transportation system, it was obvious to Shuttle officials that something this simple was not happening often enough.
But at The Pan Am Shuttle, it happened.
Within a short time after start-up, the Shuttle’s commitment to quality and performance was being felt in the marketplace, forcing the competition to follow its lead. For the first time in 25 years, the competition offered a snack to its passengers and removed rows of seating to make the aircraft less cramped. Harder (and impossible) for the competition to match was The Pan Am Shuttle’s exceptional 91 percent on-time performance record posted for the the first year of operation.
With commitment to quality and performance as the underpinnings of the Shuttle’s efforts, the initial challenge was to introduce the product to the largest segment of the flying public as possible. That meant innovative marketing and advertising programs. From its sponsorship of the 1986 World Series, dubbed the “Shuttle Series” by the media; to selected mailings, promotions and product presentations to increase the base of awareness of the new Shuttle on the block, The Pan Am Shuttle was on its way. American Express cardmembers were offered a free companion ticket to Europe for flying six Shuttle round trips. Travel departments and travel agents from all three Shuttle cities attended unique product presentations. The Pan Am Water Shuttle from Wall Street to the Marine Air Terminal was unveiled. And taxi drivers were introduced to the Marine Air Terminal through a series of promotions that ran throughout the year, continued on page 3