Hawaii First of Destinations Planned : Pan Am Flies Back in Time With New Routes

Almost two years after selling its Pacific routes to United Airlines for $750 million, Pan American World Airways plans to re-enter the market where it began service more than half a century ago.

Initially, Pan Am plans only flights to Hawaii from New York. At a later date the airline hopes to resume service to such East Asian destinations as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, possibly making Honolulu the Pan Am hub for the Pacific that it once was, according to Jeffrey Kriendler, a Pan Am spokesman.

Pan Am’s famous China Clipper began service to Asia via Honolulu on Nov. 22, 1935. Service was expanded to China a year later.

When the Pacific service resumes in late November, one New York-Hawaii flight will stop daily in Los Angeles. On Fridays and Saturdays, Pan Am will have a nonstop flight from New York to Hawaii as well as the one that stops in Los Angeles.

When Pan Am sold the Pacific routes to United early last year, the mainland U.S.-to-Hawaii route was not included. However, Pan Am stopped its flights to Hawaii then because it had nowhere else to fly from there and thought that Hawaii flights by themselves made little economic sense.

Although the airline obviously hopes that the flights will be moneymakers, the major reason for the renewal of service to Hawaii is to ensure that the island state will continue to be available as a destination for members of Pan Am’s frequent fliers club, WorldPass. Hawaii, one of the most popular destinations for passengers flying on frequent flier bonus tickets, will be lost when Pan Am severs its association with American Airlines’ frequent flier program, AAdvantage, on Wednesday.

After that, Pan Am’s WorldPass members will no longer be able to accumulate mileage on American Airlines and vice versa. Frequent fliers will have until Oct. 31 to decide into which of the two programs they want to put their previously accrued mileage. Pan Am and American have had the association since last year but decided to end it when they could not agree on how the programs should be administered.

The new Hawaii flights will begin Nov. 20, almost 52 years years to the day after Pan Am’s China Clipper began flying from the mainland to Hawaii, making it the first U.S. airline to provide such service.

Kriendler said there was nothing in the terms of Pan Am’s sale of its Pacific routes to United that prevents Pan Am from serving the area again.

He said it was too early to tell when Pan Am might extend its Pacific routes. “This is a longer-term objective,” he said. “I would not want to give the impression that this has a high priority. But we do want to expand, and that would include the possibility of going back to certain Pacific points.”

Kriendler conceded that because of the agreements that are required between governments for airlines to fly to some foreign points, it might be difficult for Pan Am to regain routes to some countries, particularly Japan. But he said that such countries as South Korea and Taiwan have “open sky” policies and would be easier to penetrate.

Other U.S. airlines competing on the Pacific routes, besides American and United, are Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines.

The frequent flier programs, though they help produce brand loyalty and build business, have also become something of a burden to the airlines. Observers say that on a typical flight as many as 2% to 4% of the passengers are flying on free bonus tickets earned with frequent flier mileage.