Pan Am to Get New Executives, Attorney Says : * Airlines: But Delta backs off the statement by the creditors’ lawyer, saying no decision has been made.

Pan Am Corp.’s creditors and Delta Air Lines have agreed to replace Pan Am’s three top executives with a new management team as they take control of the struggling carrier, an attorney for the creditors said Thursday.

“There’s no captain of the ship--you’ve got to have a captain,” Pan Am creditors’ attorney Marc Richards told reporters after a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

The Pan Am managers are Chairman and Chief Executive Thomas G. Plaskett, Chief Financial Officer Richard H. Francis and Chief Operating Officer Peter T. McHugh.

Richards said the creditors and Delta, which is buying most of Pan Am, had agreed that new management would need to be installed. He made reference to Delta’s ability to run a profitable airline.

His remarks caught Pan Am and Delta off guard, and the airlines immediately sought to distance themselves from it.

“This is a decision that will have to be made by the management of the reorganized Pan Am at a later date,” Delta spokesman Neil Monroe said.

“The issue of senior management of the reorganized company is obviously under intense discussion at this time,” Pan Am spokesman Jeffrey Kriendler said. “However, no determination has been made as to who will constitute the new management team. Any determination will be consensual among all parties.”

Delta has agreed to buy Pan Am’s operations across the Atlantic Ocean and beyond, leaving Pan Am to emerge from Chapter 11 as a smaller carrier that will move from New York to Miami and concentrate on serving Latin America and the Caribbean. The new Pan Am will be owned 55% by the creditors and 45% by Delta.

Delta and the creditors have no representation on Pan Am’s board, so they would technically be unable to fire the executives until they control the new Pan Am. But Kriendler said all three sides were working together to ensure an orderly transition.

Pan Am, once the proud unofficial U.S. flagship carrier, has been in bankruptcy court since January and agreed to sell most of its assets this summer, as it kept bleeding money and ran perilously close to collapse.

Pan Am and the creditors appeared before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Cornelius Blackshear on Thursday to say they had agreed on a severance package that will total $8.1 million for seven senior vice presidents, 21 vice presidents and 150 to 170 Pan Am executives who fall below the rank of vice president.

Pan Am has sought severance of $2.1 million for Plaskett, Francis and McHugh.

The two sides were unable to agree on a package for the three top executives and asked for another week to resolve their differences. Richards then told the judge that creditors hope to install a new manager or management team, perhaps as early as next week.

After the brief hearing, Richards told reporters that money was not the sticking point.

“We want to get a new team in there,” Richards said. “That’s the primary issue. We have to get new management.”

Richards said he had no idea who would replace Plaskett, Francis and McHugh, although he held out the possibility that some of the lower Pan Am executives could be promoted.