Flying Down To Rio

XCVII

Panair do Brasil had several logos over the years. This one is based frankly on Pan American's winged logo of the 1930s and 1940s

During World War II and after, Brazilian interests began buying out Pan American's stock in Panair do Brasil, though Pan Am always remained a shareholder. As the Brazilians acquired a majority interest they changed the company's logo. This one is based upon the Brazilian flag

The nation of Brazil had (and has) a national carrier, VARIG. VARIG was founded in 1927 by, perhaps unsurprisingly, German expats living in Rio de Janeiro. They were members of the Kondor Syndikat, the same circle of businessmen and aviators that had created SCADTA in Colombia (they also had founded Lufthansa in Germany, in 1926). 

SCADTA had reciprocity agreements with VARIG, but Brazilian law at the time forbade any foreign airline from functioning within Brazil. Thus, SCADTA had to form a Brazilian subsidiary, Condor, in order to transport people and goods within and across the Brazilian frontiers. 

 

A NYRBA do Brasil pamphlet and route map from 1930

The same rules applied in 1929, when Ralph O’Neill attempted to do business with NYRBA in Brazil; he had to set up a Brazilian subsidiary, NYRBA do Brasil. NYRBA do Brasil was required by Brazilian law to have a certain percentage of Brazilian stockholders as well as a certain number of Brazilian Directors on its Board, and to have one non-stockholding government-appointed Board member (who was essentially a spy for the Brazilian government). When O’Neill calculated the fees and taxes he had to pay to operate NYRBA do Brasil, he realized that the Brazilian government was a not-so-silent partner in his venture. Still, the profit was worth the cost, even if most of the fees and taxes the government collected from him went directly to support VARIG. NYRBA do Brasil was founded on October 22, 1929.

NYRBA do Brasil began flying between Rio and Fortaleza in January of 1930. Within weeks, routes to Salvador, Recife, and Natal were added, as were flights to Buenos Aires and Montevideo and the three Guianas. In late February, flights began between Rio de Janeiro and Miami as well. 

 

The paint hadn’t even dried on NYRBA do Brasil’s planes when the company became part of the Pan American Airways System on April 30, 1930. The company immediately became Panair do Brasil (or usually just “Panair”). 

A Commodore flying boat, circa 1930, just around the time Pan Am acquired NYRBA do Brasil. No airline livery is evident

Juan Trippe selected the name “Panair do Brasil” instead of “Pan American do Brasil” because he was at the height of his dispute with DELAG’s airship-based “Pan America Service” at the time. Yet another “Pan American” would only cloud the issue. 

Panair was strictly a flying boat and seaplane service at first, even when it began regular flights to the Brazilian interior in 1933. This gave it a great advantage over both VARIG and Condor, which used only land planes, and were thus unable to take advantage of rivers and lakes for landings. The company prospered. It built a headquarters in Rio de Janeiro which was a copy of Pan Am’s Dinner Key facility in Miami. 

In 1937, Panair purchased its first land planes, Lockheed Electras; by 1940, it had the most extensive air route system operating within and to and from Brazil.  By 1943, it had flights to all South American countries. In 1946, it began international flights to Europe, a service even VARIG did not provide at the time. 

A Panair Lockheed Electra, the airline's first land plane, circa 1937. Note the logo

By the 1950s, the term “Panair standard” had become an idiom for excellence in Brazilian Portuguese, much as “Bristol fashion” is in English.

 

Panair’s route map in 1965. Note the German text

In the postwar era, Panair bought turboprop planes, including the distinctive Lockheed Constellation. According to an internet hoax, one Constellation disappeared in 1946 and landed in Bogota in 1993, piloted and passengered by skeletons (with “still-warm coffee cups and Old Gold cigarettes.”)

A Lockheed Constellation with its distinctive triple-rudder tail, in Panair livery, circa 1950. Note the name of this "Bandeirante" (the word means "Itinerant" or "Explorer" --- more or less equivalent to the far-ranging "Clippers" of Pan Am).  According to a bizarre internet hoax, a plane such as this vanished and reappeared after almost fifty years

In 1961, Panair purchased two DC-8 jets.  

One of Panair's DC-8s, circa 1962. These planes were given to VARIG when the airline was seized by Brazil's military junta

In 1964, a military coup occurred in Brazil, and on February 10, 1965, Panair was ordered to be shut down immediately. The military government claimed that the shutdown was due to Panair’s “technical and financial irregularities.” Panair’s assets were given over to VARIG. The Brazilian members of Panair do Brasil’s Board of Directors were all arrested, and the non-Brazilians were ordered to hand over their interests to the Brazilian military junta. They refused, and sued to have Panair restored.

Years of litigation and several changes of government have not yet resolved the dispute. Panair do Brasil, now only a paper airline, still exists de jure, a lost fragment of the Pan American Airways System.

Like Pan Am, Panair marketed logoed merchandise extensively