Delta Agrees to Buy Major Pan Am Routes : * Transportation: The deal will boost the Atlanta-based airline into the ranks of the world’s largest carriers.

Delta Air Lines on Thursday agreed to purchase a major portion of Pan American World Airways, including all of its European routes and its lucrative Northeastern shuttle, in a deal worth about $260 million.

Once the deal is consummated, Delta will rank with United Airlines and American Airlines as among the largest carriers in the world.

Pan Am, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, will probably disappear after 64 years of flying as a result of the Delta agreement and a pending offer from United for its remaining international routes.

Delta, as part of the agreement that was proposed last month, will offer jobs to 6,000 of Pan Am’s 22,000 employees and loan Pan Am $60 million until the deal is finalized. Delta will also honor all tickets issued by Pan Am through January, 1992.

Some analysts said the price that Pan Am agreed to was lower than expected. But Jeffrey Kriendler, a vice president of Pan Am, said, “We think the package is fairly valued. Taking on a lot of employees is of great cost to any acquiring carrier.”

Kriendler noted that Delta would assume the pensions and medical benefits of all the Pan Am employees it hires. Pan Am’s pension obligations account for about one-third of its $1.5 billion in total liabilities, which have foiled attempts to find a buyer for the entire airline.

The deal, which also includes Pan Am’s Frankfurt, Germany, hub and 45 aircraft, must be approved by the boards of both carriers, Pan Am’s bankruptcy judge and government authorities.

The agreement with Delta and an offer from United for Pan Am’s Latin American routes bode well for a long line of creditors eager to get paid. The major creditors include United Technologies Corp., Airbus Industrie of North America and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

“This is turning out to be a well-orchestrated process of liquidation,” said airline analyst Timothy Pettee of Alliance Capital Group. He said he expects Pan Am’s creditors to ultimately receive between 60 cents to 70 cents on the dollar.

That is a far cry, Pettee said, from the 9 cents that creditors of Eastern Airlines are expected to get. Eastern used up much of its cash and assets while it operated under bankruptcy protection for two years before its liquidation began.

“Eastern had nothing left,” said Pettee. “It is difficult to sell an entity when it is not operating. Pan Am is a going concern and its assets will be much easier to dispose of.”

But Pettee said there would probably be nothing left for Pan Am stockholders.

Bankruptcy specialist Richard A. D’Aveni, a professor at Dartmouth College’s Amos Tuck Business School, said the agreement to sell Pan Am routes to Delta represents a “significant part of bankruptcy. It relocates assets to people and managers who can use them more efficiently. It is one of the ways our economy rises from the ashes.”

Delta’s agreement to hire up to 6,000 Pan Am workers also met with a warm response from union officials.

“We are pleased that management saw the wisdom of transferring the necessary number of pilots with the assets and we will cooperate toward the goal of a smooth transition,” said a statement from the Air Line Pilots Assn.