"Glamorous and Glorious and Luxurious"

CXXXV

From his earliest days in the aviation business, when he was both owner and pilot of Long Island Airways, Juan Trippe’s dream was to make air travel accessible to Everyman. He wanted people to be excited about flying. Unlike too many business owners today, for Trippe, it wasn’t just about the bottom line, it was about offering customer passengers a unique experience. Juan Trippe wanted people to feel that they were traveling to exotic, romantic destinations, and everything about Pan American Airways marketing was devised to reinforce that idea. Unlike air travel in 2016, air travel circa 1930 wasn’t about getting to your destination as it was about the voyage itself.  From the days of the earliest Fokker Trimotors in 1928, Juan Trippe promoted flying as an extraordinary experience.

The Trimotors, with their engines roaring just beyond the windows of the uninsulated cabins, were presented to the passengers as flying lounges.  The seats were of cushioned rattan, giving the interior a pleasantly tropical feel. The advertisements discreetly reminded passengers, too, that there was a “toilet room” aboard. Most people who flew down to Havana in 1929 were going there to evade Prohibition. They’d need that “toilet room” on the way back, whichever end needed the relief. A passenger to the islands was also permitted a maximum of 30 pounds of luggage (extra weight came at a cost); on the way home, much of it clanked. The Customs men usually pretended not to hear.  

In an era when people actually read ads, this one presented Pan American’s full 1929 flight schedule

In the same era, Pan American instituted “Rail-Air Service.” From New York, one entrained southward on either the “Havana Special,” the “Florida Special,” or the “Palmetto Special” to arrive in Miami, from whence Pan American would whisk you to “the Indies.” Passengers were promised “gay, tropic colors” and, for the more practical-minded, “radio [to] keep you in touch with either shore.” All this was yours at the hands of “veteran pilots.” Midwestern travelers rode either the “Floridian,” the “Dixie Limited” or the “Flamingo” south from Chicago  

The Florida East Coast Railway (FECRR), Henry Flagler’s brainchild, carried passengers south from New York to Miami and Key West via “a modern transportation system” (for those who had traveled the South by rail in other areas. Pan Am promoted flying as “the easiest way --- and the best!” to get to Havana; one could also take the ferry. After the 1935 hurricane destroyed the Overseas Railway through the Keys, flying from Miami became the most practical solution for Northern travelers to go South

“The Havana Special” from New York burned coal. Neither the FECRR nor the”Dixie Limited’s” Chicago & Eastern Illinois (C&EI) survived into the ‘electric’ or ‘streamlined’ eras

The “Dixie Limited” and its sister train, the “Dixie Flyer” both promised passengers “Air Conditioned Equipment”

 

“The Milk Run”:  One of the more interesting trivia tidbits about the “Dixie Limited” was that in 1938 C&EI tried running the train on dried milk briquettes rather than coal. They burned hotter and faster than coal and the supply ran out, forcing the Engineer to switch back to fossil fuel. But the train did make better time. The experiment was never repeated, however

The advent of the Sikorsky S-42 revolutionized Pan American’s approach to aviation. With the introduction of the long-range flying boat, Pan American Airways could introduce the American public to “Clipper Cruises” not unlike those being promoted by Dr. Hugo Eckener aboard the Graf Zeppelin.   

 

Juan Trippe wanted Everyman to enjoy the pleasures of the harbor, wherever the harbor was

Clipper Cruises (also called “Skyway Cruises”) were exactly that: Instead of taking a seagoing vessel to visit exotic ports of call one took an airgoing vessel. Clipper Cruises involved multiple stops in multiple cities over a multiple day itinerary. They were “just” pleasure cruises, limited to 30 passengers per cruise, and they included hotel accommodations and ground and river transportation as well.

If you couldn’t get away for a Clipper Cruise, you could at least get away for a romantic weekend in the Bahamas

The whole idea was Trippe’s, meant to open Americans’ eyes to new, fascinating horizons, and he priced them at a surprisingly inexpensive rate because he wanted people to travel --- six weeks in 21 different countries would cost the traveler only $1,200.00 --- but this at a time, 1931, when the average annual income of a United States citizen was $1,342.00, apples were ten cents a pound, a man’s work shirt was sixty-five cents, and steak was twenty cents a pound. A monthly car payment hovered around $15.00 per month, and a three bedroom two bath house might carry a monthly mortgage payment of $45.00.  

Compared to the Twenty-Teens, the price of a Pan American Clipper Cruise was ridiculously low and the level of service was incredibly high. Pan Am had a vested interest in assuring that its passengers were safe not only in the air but on the ground in foreign climes

“Glamorous” and “glorious” and “luxurious” were the words Juan Trippe wanted people to hear when they decided to travel. He wanted them to be “enthusiasts” not “passengers.” Since Pan American largely controlled the ground facilities --- airports and hotels --- at its destinations, the company could assure travellers that they would not be bedding down overnight in a tin hut with an alpaca

Among Pan Am’s endless stream of promotional materials (which included toy airplanes and logoed travel accessories) Pan Am distributed regular “Aerograms” that kept would-be travelers up on the latest destinations and tour packages. Despite Trippe’s desire to appeal to “Everyman,” flying remained the province of the well-to-do for years to come

Trippe understood that people were chary of flying and that flying to “exotic” destinations usually meant flying to places where being a U.S. citizen did not necessarily carry a positive cachet. These Images of ta diligent radioman and polite customs officials were circulated to allay would-be travelers’ anxieties

Although the aircraft evolved over time, Pan American’s elegant promise of the good life remained always the same