Brand Failures

132 Brand failures
43 Pan Am
Ending in tragedy
In the 1980s, Pan American World Airways, or Pan Am, was one of the most
famous brands of airline on the planet. For more than 60 years it had
pioneered transocean and intercontinental flying. Having begun life in 1927
with a few aircraft and a single route from Key West to Havana, Pan Am came
to represent US commercial aviation policy overseas. However, in the late
1980s the company started to struggle to achieve goals and performance
began to slip.
Then, in 1988, disaster struck. A Pan Am plane on route from London to
New York disappeared from radar somewhere above Scotland. Later it
emerged that a bomb had gone off in the cargo area, causing the aircraft to
break in two. The main body of the plain carried on for 13 miles before
coming to ground in the small Scottish village of Lockerbie. The total search
area spanned 845 square miles and debris turned up as far as 80 miles from
Lockerbie. In total, 270 people were killed, including 11 on the ground. One
witness told television interviewers ‘the sky was actually raining fire.’
The horrific nature of the tragedy, the fact that everybody knew that the
airline involved was Pan Am, and also the international nature of the story,
meant that the Pan Am name was tarnished and could never recover. Despite
the company’s constant promises of commitment to increasing its airline’s
security, the public was simply not willing to fly with Pan Am anymore. After
three years of flying with empty seats, in 1991 the company went bankrupt
and shut down.