AMR Dangles $500 Million for Pan Am Routes

American Airlines Friday said it is prepared to pay “in excess of $500 million” for the London routes that Pan Am Corp. earlier agreed to sell United Airlines for $400 million.

“We simply cannot conceive of any cooperative venture which would provide value comparable to the additional cash consideration by which we are prepared to better the United offer,” Robert L. Crandall, chairman of American parent AMR Corp., said in a letter to Pan Am Chairman Thomas G. Plaskett.

Pan Am announced earlier this week that it had agreed to sell its London routes to United and that it would implement an extensive marketing agreement with United.

Crandall wrote: “I find it hard to believe that any marketing program or other cooperative arrangement--short, perhaps, of one which assigns value to the anticipation of an ultimate merger--will provide value comparable to what we are prepared to pay in cash.”

Neither United nor Pan Am had any comment.

Plaskett had written a letter to Crandall a day earlier that said the deal with United was legally binding and complaining that American was interested only in the routes and not in a cooperative agreement.