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Pan Am again takes to skies
By DEBORAH O'NEIL, Times Staff Writer Laurie Hillis thought her mother made a mistake when she said she was flying from New Hampshire into St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport for a holiday visit. Surely she meant Tampa, thought Hillis, a St. Petersburg resident. Hillis checked it out and discovered not only was Mom right, she was arriving Thursday on the inaugural flight of Pan American Airways into St. Petersburg-Clearwater International. When Hillis and her husband arrived at the airport Thursday, they found a celebration under way for the airport's newest service. Waiters served complimentary conch fritters and Brazilian chicken as an island band filled the terminal with festive tunes. "Mom will think this is all for her," Hillis said jokingly. Nonstop flight 21 from Portsmouth, N.H., touched down at 11:14 a.m. and raised cheers from an audience of travelers, passengers' friends and families, and local officials. On the runway, the white Boeing 727 with the famous blue globe was showered under two streams of water from airport fire trucks. "Excellent," is how Hillis' mother, Beth Berg of Eliot, Maine, described her three-hour flight with about 40 passengers and 10 airline executives. Pan Am is the newest airline to join the county-owned airport since Southeast came aboard last year, bringing the total number of carriers to eight. The new airline's timing was fortuitous for the airport, which last month lost one of its biggest airlines, Canada 3000. Pan Am is projected to bring in 86,000 passengers annually with 13 flights weekly, an addition that will offset the losses from Canada 3000. "We're very excited to have Pan Am on board," said airport marketing director Elaine Smalling. "I think they are going to do very well in this market." County Commissioner Bob Stewart greeted Pan Am president David Fink, who arrived on the inaugural flight. "It's good to see the globe come to Pinellas County," Stewart said. "We're delighted to see you back in action." The original Pan Am began flying in 1928 and was a pioneer in commercial aviation. But in 1991 the company went bankrupt in the wake of the 1988 bombing of Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. Pan Am re-emerged in 1996 as a discount airline but shut down again the next year. In 1998, Fink and business partner Tim Mellon bought Pan Am's assets, logo and name for $28.5-million and relocated the company's headquarters from Miami to New Hampshire. Fink said he has big plans for Florida. Along with three direct destinations and four connecting cities available at St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fink said he intends to introduce intrastate commuter service to various Florida cities next year. The details are still in the works. "We hope to expand what we're doing," Fink said. "What we do, we do very deliberately, very slowly, so we don't end up like our predecessors." Awaiting Fink's arrival at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International was Clearwater couple John and Fran Wilkinson, friends of the airport executive. The couple said they were delighted Pan Am is offering flights to New England because their daughter lives in Maine. "He said, "Come on over, I'll buy you a cup of coffee and a doughnut,' " Mrs. Wilkinson said. But Fink brought along a surprise for the couple. He flew in their daughter, Lisa duHamel, who celebrated her 45th birthday Thursday. Pan Am at St. Petersburg- Clearwater InternationalNonstop flights: Portsmouth, N.H.; Gary-Chicago Airport, Ind.; Orlando-Sanford Connecting flights: Baltimore; Allentown, Pa.; Worcester, Mass.; Bangor, Maine
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From the Times North Pinellas desks |
