2 Airlines About to Take Wing Again

Former Pan American World Airways Inc. executive Martin Shugrue is about to unveil a reborn version of the airline as a low-cost domestic carrier. Shugrue, Pan Am’s former chief operating officer, will hold a news conference Tuesday in New York to introduce the scaled-down version of the once-dominant international airline that collapsed more than four years ago, a spokesman said. Shugrue and Chuck Cobb, a former undersecretary of commerce who purchased the rights to the Pan Am name in 1993, negotiated with banks and investment groups for $30 million to $40 million in financing to start the venture. The new Pan Am, which will probably be based in Miami, will fly from New York to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. Shugrue and Cobb signed agreements in principle to supply connecting flights to several overseas airlines. Pan Am filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 1991, a day after Delta Air Lines refused to finance a scaled-down version of the airline that would primarily serve Latin America. Pan Am stopped flying 11 months later.

Meanwhile, airline revolutionary Sir Freddie Laker is back at it. Laker--best known for his 1970s “I’m Freddie, fly me” TV ads touting cheap “Skytrain” flights to London on the now-defunct, British-based Laker Airways Ltd.--wants to take another crack at it on this side of the Atlantic. His plan: a new Laker Airways, this time based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., shuttling European tourists to U.S. vacation hot spots and giving Americans another travel option to Europe. The new carrier has all the approvals it needs from the Transportation Department, Laker says. But it needs a final safety clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration, which could come as early as March.