Today, Juan Trippe is known for a number of things. Primarily, this is for being the driving force behind Pan Am for almost 40 years, but also, for being the guy who helped to create the 747!
According to most aviation historians, Trippe is regarded as being one of the fathers of the American airline industry. This is alongside people like Eddie Rickenbacker, Jack Frye and Pat Patterson.
Due to this, Trippe has been immortalized in a number of aviation movies, including Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator and Pat O’Brien’s The China Clipper.
Early Life
Juan Terry Trippe was born on June 27, 1899 to Charles and Lucy Trippe. His mother was a homemaker, whilst his father was a New York-based investment banker and stockbroker.
Interestingly, Trippe was actually one of the great-great-grandsons of US Navy Lieutenant John Trippe, who had served during the Quasi and First Barbary Wars. In the latter conflict, he had commanded the USS Vixen schooner.
He was named “Juan Terry” in honor of his great-uncle’s Venezuelan-born wife, Juanita Trippe (née Terry). To many unfamiliar with is family history, they would understandably (but falsely) believe he had Cuban heritage.
As the son of a wealthy investment banker, Trippe was sent to elite private schools. He would high school in 1917, and would enroll at Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School.
However, as with many young men at the time, a young Juan wanted to serve his country during WWI. In particular, he wanted to become a bomber pilot for the US Navy.
Juan joined the Navy in late summer 1918. Here, he’d graduate as a bomber pilot and be shipped to Europe. However, the start end of WWI prevented Trippe from seeing active service.
Pre-Pan Am
Following WWI, Trippe would return back home and leave the Navy. With this, he was free to return to Yale, where he’d be an influential man on campus, allegedly being a member of the Skull and Bones and St Anthony Hall societies.
Trippe would graduate from Yale in 1921, determined to follow in the footsteps of his father by becoming an investment banker on Wall Street. However, the glamor of Wall Street soon faded for a young Juan.
Soon, he began looking for another way to make a living.
By 1922, he’d found it, after remembering seeing the Wright Brothers’ flight around New York in 1909: aviation. After doing a bit more research, he came across the idea of air taxi services, which he was particularly interested in.
Not having the money himself, Juan contacted a number of his old classmates from Yale, pitching his air taxi service to them. A number chose to invest in Trippe’s airline, which he called Long Island Airways.
Long Island Airways would cater the the richest of the rich in the Long Island area, ferrying them around the New York/Long Island area.
By 1925, the airline had grown to be able to take over another airline, called Colonial Air Transport. Unlike Long Island Airways, Colonial Air Transport transported airmail, having recently been awarded a new contract in October 1925.
Trippe later merged the two airlines together, before selling them to AVCO in 1929, netting both himself and his investors a large profit.
Joining PAA
Following this, Juan Trippe would form the Aviation Company of the Americas (ACA). This was done thanks to the financial backing of financiers Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney and Averell Harriman.
At the same time, ACA would acquire a relatively small airmail airline called American International Airways. Trippe bought AIA strategically, due to the fact it had just been awarded an airmail contract between Florida and Havana.
In early 1928, ACA entered talks to merge with Pam American Airways, or PAA for short. After much negotiation, ACA would merge with PAA on June 23 1928, retaining the PAA name and logo.
Juan Trippe himself would own 40% of PAA, and serve as its Chief Operating Officer (COO). In this capacity, Juan Trippe would oversee the repainting of all former ACA aircraft in new PAA colors.
On top of these duties, Trippe would also be responsible for maintaining PAA’s pre-existing airmail contracts, as many needed to be renewed following the merger.
All of ACA’s pre-existing airmail contracts were also rolled into PAA, giving them a large network of airmail routes, which a 29-year old Juan Trippe was in charge of.
Expanding Pan Am
Following this, Trippe’s main job would be to expand PAA’s routes.
Unlike other airline executives at the time, Trippe wasn’t too interested in domestic routes, believing that too many airlines were placing nonsensical bids for airmail routes it could not sustain.
Instead, Trippe focused heavily on expanding PAA into Central and South America, believing that this is how PAA would make a name for itself.
To do this, Trippe gained a number of allies in Washington, who essentially made sure that PAA was the only US airline who could apply for international routes.
Initially, Trippe’s strategy was to buy up failing carriers with international routes. Here, the routes and the aircraft themselves would become property of PAA, who would continue to operate them as usual.
They would also use this to negotiate with local postal services for additional routes in the local area, which they were often granted.
Over time, however, this strategy became less and less effective. With this, PAA began to establish a number form a number of partnerships with other airlines to get more routes.
Trippe would also begin buying large, but not controlling, stakes in foreign airlines, in effect placing them under PAA control. This was famously done with Mexicana, with Pan Am operating Mexicana Ford Trimotors!
PAA would also begin to offer passenger services on selected routes too.
By 1930, Pan American had become the world’s largest airline, in terms of both fleet and number of destinations.
Clipper Era
By the mid-1930’s, PAA had flights in almost every country in the Americas. At Juan Trippe’s direction, PAA expanded into China, offering flights on its Martin M-130 flying boats from San Francisco to China.
Juan also led the PAA takeover of China’s largest airline at the time, China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC). The airline would operate the bulk of the domestic routes within China until the end of the Civil War in 1949.
Here, the communists would forcefully nationalize CNAC.
By all accounts, Juan Trippe had an airline empire. Yet, he still wanted more. In particular, he wanted to cross the Atlantic.
Juan knew that, theoretically, it was possible to fly commercial airliners on transatlantic routes. Yet no airline had demanded such an aircraft, not in Europe, and not in the United States. So Juan did…
Trippe contacted a number of major aircraft manufacturers in the US, and told them what he was looking for After receiving a number of bids, Trippe singled out the Boeing design as the best.
Here, he would contact Boeing and place an order for it in July 1936. By 1938, Boeing had a working design and prototype, which was entered into service the following the year.
Boeing called this aircraft the Boeing 314 Clipper. The Clipper enabled Juan Trippe’s PAA to start offering transatlantic routes, which were far quicker and more luxurious than traveling by sea.
This move saw Pan Am (as it had come to be known) become famous on both sides of the Atlantic!
WWII
In 1941, America declared war on Japan, which essentially brought the US into WWII. Here, Pan Am’s prized Clippers were pressed into military service, mostly as troop transports, as they could avoid German U-Boats.
With that being said, Pan Am did keep a few for themselves. These were then used for passenger flights to non-combatant countries such as Portugal, or as airmail aircraft on Pan Am’s existing South American routes.
However, Juan Trippe was determined not to allow the war to hamper Pan Am’s expansion. Instead of focusing on the Pacific and Atlantic, Trippe began to focus once again on South America.
To do this, he would increase the number of airmail contracts he had in almost all South American countries.
Pan Am would also increase its number of flights to the west coast of Ireland. Here, Juan Trippe and Chef Joe Sheridan, came up the idea to use local cuisine and alcoholic beverages on the flights.
Despite the world being at war, Pan Am continued to turn a large profit, which Juan Trippe would use to place orders for more aircraft. These were intended to be delivered once the war had ended.
Post-WWII Era
Following the war, Juan Trippe would continue to lead Pan Am. The US military would return all of Pan Am’s old aircraft. However, the war had shaped aviation in a number of different ways…
You see, prior to the war, Juan Trippe and his friends in Washington had convinced the American public that in order to remain competitive with Europe, the US could only have one international carrier.
And this was true. For the time.
Following the war, Howard Hughes’ TWA had acquired the Lockheed Constellation (as had Pan Am). With the Constellations, TWA could now offer flights from the US, to both Paris and London.
In the years following the war, Juan Trippe had acquired a number of long range airliners, such as the double-deck Boeing 377 and the Douglas DC-4, DC-6 and DC-7.
With these aircraft, Juan Trippe could fly over double the amount of people as it could on the Clipper, at a vastly reduced rate. This allowed Trippe to undercut TWA, by offering far lower prices, whilst still making a profit!
Trippe would also pioneer Pan Am’s brand of luxury hotels, the InterContinental Hotel Group. Juan Trippe, himself would open the first of these hotels, the Grande Hotel in Belem, Brazil.
Joining the Jet Age
Both prior and throughout WWII, aircraft engineers had been attempting to create the first jet engine. By 1943, the British not only had a working jet engine, but also a working jet aircraft.
Following the war, every major aircraft manufacturer was looking at how they could use jet engines on commercial airliners. And then, in 1952, British aircraft manufacturer, de Havilland, finally did it!
In 1952, de Havilland introduced their DH106 airliner. Initially, Juan Trippe was interested in the jet, before being assured by Boeing that they could produce a better airliner. Trippe would personally place the order in 1955.
Boeing would later deliver the first 707s to Pan Am in October 1958. Trippe would place these 707s on their transatlantic routes, with the inaugural flight of the 707 being from what is now JFK, to Paris Le Bourget.
At the behest of Trippe, Pan Am would also place an order for 25 DC-8s at the same time. These would be introduced with the airline in October 1960, before being retired in 1968.
For Pan Am and Juan Trippe, the introduction of jets like the DC-8 and 707 opened up so many more opportunities! Not only could the jets carry more people, they could also do the entire flight in one complete flight.
This allowed Juan Trippe and Pan Am to lower prices, which helped to increase Pan Am’s presence around the world.
The 747
By the early-to-mid 1960’s, Pan Am operated a large jet fleet, with the 707 and DC-8 at the helm. With this, Pan Am was undoubtedly the largest airline in the United States at the time.
However, the 707 and DC-8 weren’t enough. Pan Am weren’t the only airline to see the benefits of using the 707 and DC-8 on high-demand, international routes. Soon, most airlines were operating 707s and DC-8s internationally.
This led to international airports like Heathrow, Le Bourget and what’s now JFK, to be full of the jets. Whilst bigger than previous airliners, Juan Trippe knew that Pan Am needed to stand out by having a larger airliner.
As such, he contacted his friend (and Boeing’s President at the time!) Bill Allen. Here, he asked if it would be possible to create a long-range jet airliner that carry two-and-a-half times as many passengers as the 707/DC-8.
Bill Allen assured Juan Trippe that this was indeed possible from an engineering point of view, and called in Joe Sutter to head the design effort. By 1966, Boeing had a workable design, which they showed Trippe.
Trippe liked the design and placed an order for 25 aircraft, which Boeing designated the Boeing 747-100. At $25 million per aircraft, the 747 was one of the most expensive commercial aircraft of its time.
Despite this, Trippe saw the potential of the aircraft, both as a passenger and cargo airliner. The first 747-100s would be delivered to Pan Am in January 1970, becoming the first operator of the type.
Pan Am would also acquire cargo a 747-200 from World Airways in 1974 and two from Boeing in 1979. In 1983, Pan Am would also acquire seven former Singapore Airlines 747-200Bs for passenger service.
Supersonic Airliners
One of the main reasons Trippe was so interested in the original 747-100 was because it could quite easily be turned into a cargo aircraft. This would’ve saved Pan Am a lot of money once supersonic airliners were introduced.
You see, in 1947, Chuck Yeager flew a Bell X-1 so fast, that it broke the sound barrier. Following this, airline executives began demanding an airliner that could fly at such high speeds.
The prevailing theory was, that if an aircraft could fly so fast, people would be willing to pay slightly higher for it. On top of this, flying at such high speeds, would make it so it could fly far more flights than other long haul airliners could.
In essence, this would’ve made Pan Am and Juan Trippe a lot of money.
Initially, Trippe was interested in acquiring an American-made Supersonic Transport (SST). In particular, he was interested in the Boeing 2707, which was both larger and faster than anything being developed in Europe.
Over time, however, it became clear that Boeing was never going to build the 2707, due to environmental concerns. Trippe attempted to rejuvenate the project in the US, by claiming he’d buy the Anglo-French Concorde.
Alas, the damage had been done, and Boeing shelved the 2707 in 1971. Pan Am would not go on to purchase the Concorde due to the 1973 Oil Crisis, which disturbed the airline industry immensely.
Later Years
In 1968, an ageing Juan Trippe stepped down as both president and CEO of Pan Am. This move allowed Howard E. Gray to take up both positions, before leaving in favor of Najeeb Halaby, in 1971.
Despite stepping down in 1968, Trippe remained on the board of directors, in a non-executive capacity. Trippe would still attend board meetings well into his seventies and eighties, remaining on the board of directors until his death.
Even though he was no longer an employee of the airline Trippe would maintain an office in the Pan Am building in New York (now the MetLife Building).
Trippe would similarly remain working closely with Pan Am’s CEOs until September 1980, when a stroke forced him to cut back his workload greatly.
He would suffer another stroke on April 3 1981, which would prove to be fatal. His funeral would be held in a small, private ceremony at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
Trippe would be survived by his wife Betty (who later died in 1983) and their four children, the youngest of whom, Edward, remains involved in aviation, currently sitting on Bermuda International Airport’s advisory board.
In 1985, then-President, Ronald Reagan, awarded Trippe the Presidential Medal of Freedom due to his role in democratizing air travel as we know it!
Legacy
Juan Trippe spent approximately 75 years in the aviation industry, from the mid-1920’s until the early 1980’s. Here, Trippe shaped the aviation industries in more ways than we will ever know…
Aviation Industry
When Trippe entered the airline business, only the wealthiest of the world’s wealthiest could afford to fly. Trippe believed that he could turn this on its head, and democratize air travel for everyone!
And Trippe was actually able to do this. Trippe strategically acquired all of Pan Am’s aircraft. He acquired new aircraft for only two reasons: size and economics. If an aircraft didn’t provide him that, he didn’t buy it.
He would buy larger and cheaper to operate aircraft, so he could lower his ticket prices. Here, Pan Am would still be able to make a profit, whilst also allowing more people to fly than ever before.
At the beginning of the 1940’s, less than 1% of the US population (at the time) had ever stepped foot on a commercial airliner. By the time Trippe “retired” in 1968, well over 15% had!
This is because they could afford to fly on Pan Am!
Pan Am
Trippe was the driving force behind Pan Am’s expansion. He turned what was just him and a few rented biplanes, into the United States’ unofficial flag carrier, in a matter of years.
Although Trippe led the airline for over four decades, his leadership style was less than orthodox. This would mold a corporate culture at Pan Am unlike any other airline of its day, and his employees loved him for it!
Under Trippe’s watch, Pan Am accomplished what no other airline before or after has done: Become an icon.
During the 20th Century, Pan Am was the living embodiment of the airline industry, becoming synonymous with the industry at large, both at home and abroad.
Within a decade of Trippe’s death, the empire that he’d spent his life building crumbled, and was devoured by Pan Am’s fiercest rivals. Today, many of their former aircraft are still flying, albeit with much smaller carriers.
What do you think of Juan Trippe? Tell me in the comments!