Hey y'all, I recently joined AH.com a few months ago and was inspired by the thread about Howard Hughes forming the fourth American TV network to write a TL about Pan American World Airways surviving to the present day and becoming one of the dominant legacy carriers in the American airline ecosystem. From my research I believe I have identified two possible PODs that would put Pan Am on the road to surviving the turbulent 80s and growing into a dominant position thereafter:
1. The CAB allows Pan Am to buy Eastern in 1974, thereby butterflying the need for domestic feed post-deregulation that led to the desperate bidding war for National.
2. Pan Am for some reason (perhaps Juan Trippe staying on as CEO a few more years?) goes less overboard on 747 purchases in the early 70s, which alleviates the need to have domestic feed to fill the planes enough to where they can be more measured and less desperate post deregulation and rely on their already existing international business long enough to possibly take advantage of the demise of Braniff to buy capacity for peanuts in comparison to the National merger with no fleet and labor compatibilty issues.
Which one of these would make for the most compelling story and also be the least ASB/require the least amount of handwavium to bring about, or is there a different/better POD that maybe I overlooked? Any input appreciated.