The Strange Zombie Existence of Pan Am

Pan Am was once the de facto American flag airline. Where as other countries had state owned airlines--known as flag airlines--running international routes, America did not. We had Pan Am. It was both the biggest and know for it's luxury, including comely stewardess.

However, that was its heyday in the 1960's. Pan Am struggled with rising fuel costs and then airline deregulation. The company went bankrupt and ceased flying in 1991.

Yet Pan Am lives on. You can buy Pan Am board game. Funko Pop, which usually makes figurines of comic book and movie characters, has made not one but four Pan Am stewardess figurines. For flush Pan Am enthusiasts there is a $9,000 Pan Am watch.

There is some precedent for reviving dead brands. Why take a risk with trying to establish a new brand when there is a fondly remembered established brand available? After decades of facing increasingly more available and more explicit competition Playboy magazine was finally killed off by the pandemic. Tower Records closed its stores in 2006 as people stopped buying physical music. Yet Playboy and Tower Records are both still open for business.

However, the circumstances of those brands is different. Playboy had long established itself as a lifestyle brand that it is still able to trade on. Tower Records was able to stage an online comeback as buying vniyl records as collector items became popular.

Salvaging the Pan Am brand for an airline would make sense, and indeed attempts to make a new airline named Pan Am have been tried five times. Incongruously, the longest lasting reuse of the name in transport was a railroad company.

That's not what I'm talking about here. I am asking about why there is a store in South Korea dedicated to selling only Pan Am merchandise.

I mean, is there a demand for this? Pan Am stopped flying over 30 years ago so the average Gen Z member probably has never even heard of them. As a Millennial when I hear Pan Am the first thing that comes to mind is not the golden age of air travel but Scottish Flight 103, when all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground were killed by Libyan terrorists.

The store maybe new, but attempting to trade in on nostalgia for the brand is not. In 2011 the show Pan Am appeared on ABC, staring Christina Ricci and Margot Robbie. The airbrushed version of the 1960's and absurd espionage plot failed to hold the attention of audiences. The show was canceled after one season.

"For over ninety years, Pan American World Airways has been synonymous with Quality, Style, and Innovation." So reads the Pan American World Airways, Inc. Licensing Program, as though the airline was still flying. They offer not only reminiscence but "forging new innovative paths in the market with our Jet Set Collection of iconic Pan Am logos." Whatever that means. If you can't come up with a brand of your own, you can come to them. Any relation to planes is nice but unnecessary.

Is there a demand for the brand though? The official Instagram account only has some 6,000 followers. An unofficial twitter focused more on classic aspects of trade mark rather than marketing opportunities does a bit better, but still only 15,000 followers.

"People had a choice. And the first choice was Pan Am." Reads the tweet. Except that wasn't really true in general. People often didn't have a choice: on international routes Pan Am was often the only option. When deregulation prompted more competition, Pan Am couldn't compete and folded. (Today choice has gone down because of too many mergers and airlines being able to openly collude.) This raises the question: was Pan Am ever really a beloved company?

Does Pan Am make sense as lifestyle brand? No. Would I wear this Pan Am t-shirt? Yes. But I'm kind of a contrarian like that.