AHC: Save Pan Am

With a POD of 1974 or later, have Pan Am remain a major airline with a large presence in international and domestic markets. Bonus if you can make it the largest airline in the world by revenue passenger miles.
 
Don't buy and merge with National Airlines in 1979 and '80.*

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* per this New York Times article, in late '79 the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) gave approval to the proposed merger and President Carter declined to overrule this approved.

*Most of the first business steps, including negotiating with labor unions, for the merger took place in 1980.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/1979/12/...pproved&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
 
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https://books.google.com/books?id=G...th-south routes were running in the "&f=false

' . . . On top of everything else, National's north-south routes were running in the wrong direction to give Pan Am the passenger feed it needed to Asia and Europe. . . '
Pan Am wanted a merger. Logical enough. But then they drifted into this seeming mania of some merger, any merger.

In 1979, they battled other airlines for National's shares, and got Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) approval for the merger.

In 1980, Pan Am did most of the business steps to integrate the two airlines.

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*I corrected these dates from before when I was off by a couple of years.
 
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SsgtC

Banned
Little bit of an off the wall idea, maybe. In 1990, Delta buys out the entirety of Pan Am and converts them to being a regional feeder airline.
 
Terrorists have their bomb detected by Pan-Am security, and they get good PR in 1988.
That's going to require some major changes as IIRC the Pan Am security, they were privately hired by the airline who charged customers extra for the service, at Frankfurt airport were completely inept - it was complete security theatre simply to help reassure the customers/be used as a selling point.
 
That's going to require some major changes as IIRC the Pan Am security, they were privately hired by the airline who charged customers extra for the service, at Frankfurt airport were completely inept - it was complete security theatre simply to help reassure the customers/be used as a selling point.

even a blind hog can find an acorn once in a while. They get lucky. It happens. Or the detonators fail. In any case Flight 103 lands safely, and maybe a KLM or Lufthansa flight falls.
 
Make a point of granting Pan Am some of the domestic route authorities they requested? That was the whole reason they went merger-crazy in the first place: the former domestic carriers were granted international route authorities, but Pan Am was refused any domestic route authorities.

But would that require an underlying political PoD some time earlier?
 

SsgtC

Banned
Make a point of granting Pan Am some of the domestic route authorities they requested? That was the whole reason they went merger-crazy in the first place: the former domestic carriers were granted international route authorities, but Pan Am was refused any domestic route authorities.

But would that require an underlying political PoD some time earlier?
Earlier deregulation maybe? If Pan Am isn't dealing with multiple crises in the immediate run up to deregulation, it might let them go into it in a stronger position.
 
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