The Hawaii Jet Age and Pan Am
In 1936, the Cost of a Ticket to Hawaii from California was $5,500 (2023 currency. $114,840) with weekly passenger service, carried cargo, airmail, with a demand of 1000 people applying to go on the first trip over with only seven being selected. The landing zone would be by Middle Loch where the ships went to retire and it was just off from Pearl City where many would head over to the world famous “Pearl City Tavern” as it was a place to get some great local oriental food, american food, and monkey entertainment. Another point of arrival and take-off was Keehi Lagoon in Kalihi that was utilized by the military. People really had to have a lot of money to go on a flight and it wasn’t simply travel but it was an entire experience package of luxury that not just anyone could go on and was incredible at the time with any trip anywhere being the trip of a lifetime in comparison to these days travel is for travel-sake and made typical instead of exclusive to the rich.
In 1940s (The Jet Age), During the War (World War II) Pan American operated many of the Military services and for branches of government as a time of national emergency and closed many of its Pacific and Atlantic routes until 1947 where they established their Round-the-World schedule and did a large recruitment for the upcoming experiences of travel that would be marked as “The Jet Age” that would follow throughout the much of the 1950s,1960s, and slowed in the 1970s.This would be to the increase in fuel prices, deregulation for competition of cheaper fairs (foreign and domestic), casual world travel with non-luxury amenities as the norm, and a lowering interest in Aircraft and being more interested in the destination with the rise of travel. The Better Business Bureau of Honolulu (1948) 4th Annual Meeting was held at Queen’s Surf (Spencecliff) with J.Walter Thompson Advertising Agency rep.Evan R Peters, Wrex W Cruse of PanAm, and then BBB President Willis K Leong. This was for the long term plans of transforming Hawaii into a premiere travel destination in the long term with the airlines to benefit the small businesses in Hawaii and find out how together the people in Hawaii could grow with the possibility of an up and coming tourism industry.
In 1950’s, ????
In 1960s, ????
In 1970’s, During the Vietnam War at the end tail of it there was Operation Babylift that involved orphaned babies that landed in 1975 at Hickam Airforce Base and cared for by Honolulu residents. This was the time where there was the Jumbo-Jet 747 that was bigger than anyone had server seen and Pan American started its 747 daily-service in Hawaii during that time the 1970’s with routes having non-stop service from Honolulu to the Midwest and the East Coast.. With three other competing airlines who would get 747’s they were made to carry somewhere around 400 passengers due to increased demand as Hawaii was approaching huge government interest in Travel with National and International Hotels and Travel Agencies. Anyways the Pan Am Hong Kong crew went to Saigon Vietnam (Tan Son Nhut airport) to pick up 295 infants, 100 children, 5 doctors, 10 nurses, and 45 other escorts. The plane landed in Guam and changed crews as it went off to Hawaii to the base where there were many families coming to adopt the babies and adopt the children who had just started life in the most traumatic ways. From April 3-26, 1975, 3,300 infants and children, 90,000 refugees, would make their way to start their lives in the U.S., Australia, France, and Canada. Those who grew up just about their entire lives in Hawaii are said to be some of the next immigration wave that paved the way for Local-Vietnamese that is hardly talked about from those who were adopted and mostly of the Plantation-wave of Vietnamese immigrants at the time.
Pan American World Airways in Hawaii (1936-1991)
"Hawaii by flying clipper, the happiest paradise of the pacific"
PanAm Pioneering the Pacific, The Sikorsky Aircraft had developed the S-42 (150 mph airspeed, 21 hours max fuel). The plan for Juan Trippe of PanAm was to make a route to China through the Pacific Islands: San Francisco to Hawaii to Midway to Wake Island to Guam to Manila to Hong Kong. The Atlantic route was blocked from PanAm and it made the business to go for the Pacific, so there would need to be a plan to get to places of business with Flying Boats. A Flying Boat needs flat water because waves would break flying boats to pieces, so there would always need a lagoon of some sorts, which the key to crossing the Pacific was Wake Island that would bring access to Asia Mail service, Commercial Aviation for PanAm through Air Bases with Flyboat Docks, and it was working with the U.S. Navy as an Information gathering place by working with the U.S. Government.
First Survey Across the Impossible Pacific
PanAm put Hawaii on the Travel Map with its first Passenger flight that was all possible to the Pacific Survey Flight. The First Survey across the Pacific between California and Hawaii was on April 17, 1935 (2,400 miles). It was on the Pan American Clipper (Bridgeport CT Factory), Sikorsky S-42 [NR-823M], with the crew: Captain Edwin C Musick, R.O.D. Sullivan, Victoria A Wright, Fred J Noonan, Harry Canaday, and W.T. Jarboe Jr. Th-e aircraft was re-registered because of the removed modifications of extra fuel tanks and no cabin sears to prepare for the unfamiliar route. They arrived in Honolulu after 18 hours 37 minutes in Pearl Harbor 7:57 A.M. The world’s first true trans-oceanic air route to a crowd of 1,500 people after it floated down to the port and they would be quickly off to head back where the flight would fight ferocious headwinds and barely made it back with 20 hours and 59 minutes, which means they barely made it out alive on the way back. It would go back to a NC-823M to be refitted for passengers after completing four Pacific Survey Flights.
Martin M-130 - Pan Am China Clipper Launch and Pacific Crossing
The biggest Flying Boat ever built in the U.S. was made by Martin Aircraft with the M-130 (180 mph airspeed) and people thought it was a crazy idea, but it passed its flight tests, a technological novel in aviation. It would be named the “China Clipper” after an American Sailing ship that crossed the Pacific 100 years prior and inspected by Charles Lindbergh. The same year 1935, during the Great Depression, in Alameda San Francisco, Radio Stations had everyone watching and everyone tuned into their radios including President Roosevelt who sent a message to see the launch of the China Clipper that would hop from place to place to make its way through the Pacific where people were still dying over that large body of water and only the best in the world wouldn’t die trying to land while traveling 1/3rd around the world. Ed Musick would that same year command Pan Am's first trans-Pacific international flight to establish the Independent Philippines in Manila with the letter from President Roosevelt to President Manuel L. Quezon.
The Experience after the landing would be that people would step out of the plain with the sunshine shooting out and as a person walked out after landing they would be met with the boarding stairs. Walking down there would be several “Hula Dancers” that would be there near “Lei Givers” that would welcome people with much aloha to Hawaii with no big buildings and a mountain range ever so green. There would be a floral smell that would make its way throughout the airport, so people could smell when people were landing, so when stepping on to the ground there were all the senses being occupied
PanAm Stewardesses “Stews”
In 1955, Pan American World Airways began to recruit Japanese American local stewardesses known as “The First Oriental PanAm Stewardesses” or historically as the "Pan Am Nisei stewardesses" or “Stews” in pidgin English. They would do this
for their Worldwide travel with the know how of a foreign place, the look of the company, uniform and makeup regiment, and strict age (17-32 years of age) and body requirements (Height at least 5’2 and Less than 130 Lbs) at reaching marriage or having children or reaching the age of 32 the contract states retirement. Regardless of seeking beautiful singles, the job had a status of being prestigious because traveling was super-expensive, PanAm was high-status, and the Interiors of the planes were made with Luxury in mind with High-class food.
As many other groups of PanAm Stewardesses around the world and from the Hawaii Recruitment Program they would put up with it as it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. In 1960’s, Many of the girls were recruited right out of highschool for their good looks or as they called it chasing people who had “The Look”, but it really did work out for them as both the company would make money and the girls would be known professionally as “PanAm Ambassadors”, but by the public as “Glamour Girls of the Skies” aka. PanAm Models. There would also be a fancy group-ID booklet with a photo of the based-group and a individual photo of the Stewardess with imprinted ID with a designator code for the station. They were given blank Pan Am Tickets to go anywhere and go around the world with special tickets that would allow them to go on flights that had space.
The stewardesses would cook food in the “Plane Galley”, there would be the upper deck lounge dining areas, and they learned mixed drinks and served cocktails from the “Sky Bar” with the bartender. When things weren’t too busy in the flight kitchen the staff would be washing the china, glass ware, utensils, cutting boards, and wine trays. The experience was a no-tax binge of products and a multicourse meal of: artisan cheeses, fruit board, charcuterie, sizzling plates, cake, wine/tea/coffee and handsome male wait staff.
PanAm Pacific Office
Before the construction of the Pan Am Building there was the Chrysler Plymouth Dodge dealership and Kapiolani Drive In Theater that were taken down in order to start the project.
Construction,
Bob Lundy worked with the planning for the roof of the building.
In the 1970s Crown Corporation had offices there with PanAm Offices with Jack Foley being the head at the time.
Cavalier restaurant, Eagle's Nest, Kahala Kai Photos Office, OHA Office (moved to Kapiolani).
Aloha Chapter of PanAm Association
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“The Experience of riding a Clipper “The Stratocruise wee so loud you hade to yell at the person you were talking to.”
Airliner Race to the Bottom
International Airlines brought their own competition to PanAm with their own Beautiful Stewardesses, Handsome Pilots, brought their Own Flag, unique Cultural Appeal in the Travel, Cultural Foods, and lowered their prices with the lower cost of workers and fuel while having their money stored Internationally and get money at places which had higher exchange rates and be making some large profits. PanAm's global dominance would fall quickly from foreign air traffic and it would become a race to the bottom with Pan Am trying to lower their fares at the price of foreign competition to regain control of passengers. In 1979 with the 39th President of the U.S. Jimmy Carter and his administration would deregulate domestic airlines that would cause National competition to drastically rise with even more losses of passengers, so they purchased National Airlines, but it still didn’t save them as the company would have to fill their flights at a loss that looked good and marked their end. The company would end up closing up afterwards leaving its amazing history behind with Hawaii and New York being some of the places that celebrated it the most.
Staff: George Nakihei, Fred Burroughs, Charley Fernandez, Larry Whipple, Cecil Hale (mechanic), Beryl Pierce, Tony Adams (maintenance supervisor), Joseph Engbino, Alfred Molina (flight kitchen chef), Jerry Lee Sanner (cook), Marjorie Sumner (cook), Betty Santoki (stew), Bonnie Ruivivar (stew), Marie Hatashita (stew), Henry Best, William Fortenberry
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