Juan Trippe

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Juan Terry Trippe (1899-1981), the undisputed pioneer of the American overseas aviation industry, led Pan American Airways from 1927 to 1968. Having opened up Latin America, the African periphery, the Pacific, and Southeast Asia during the 1930s, Pan American played an important role in World War II before spearheading mass, low-cost tourism across the North Atlantic to Western Europe in the 1950s.

Juan Trippe was born on June 27, 1899, to a well-off New York family, which, despite his first name, had no significant Hispanic connections. He attended the Hill School and entered Yale University in 1917. Trippe and some classmates became Navy pilots after America entered World War I, but they saw no combat. He later returned to Yale, graduated in 1921, and became a Wall Street bond salesman.

But Trippe and his wealthy associates were fascinated by aviation, whose future seemed rich with possibilities. Having bought some surplus Navy planes in 1923, they organized Long Island Airways before creating Colonial Air Transport in 1924 to fly between New York and Boston. Aviation attracted little business, however, until the federal government intervened to control entries, routes, and franchises, while also providing airmail contracts as virtual subsidies. After a dispute within Colonial over extending it to Miami, Trippe resigned in 1926 and formed a new corporation, which merged in 1927 with Pan American Airways. He became president and general manager.

Beginning with a 90-mile airmail route from Key West to Havana, Trippe spearheaded Pan American's spectacular expansion into the coastal cities of Latin America and established 11, 000 miles of routes by late 1929. He secured the indispensable U.S. airmail contracts and began lobbying for Pan American's position as a "chosen instrument" of American policy in South America, a continent of vast distances, impenetrable terrain, and many U.S. strategic and economic interests. State Department backing often bolstered his negotiations with foreign governments for routes, landing rights, terminals, and customs' privileges.

In 1929 W. R. Grace & Co. and Pan American organized Panagra (Pan American and Grace Airways) to operate on the west coast of Latin America. By the early 1930s Pan American had largely overshadowed its competitors in the region. In return for its government-sponsored quasi-monopoly abroad, Pan American followed Washington's tight regulatory policies by shunning the American market.

Pan American expanded rapidly despite the Great Depression and gained prestige by employing Charles Lindbergh, the "Lone Eagle" of public acclaim, and by turning what had been the adventure of flight into a safe, reliable, and profitable business venture. Trippe built an elaborate infrastructure of weather stations and communications, navigation, and maintenance facilities, first in Latin America and then on Hawaii and other Pacific islands. The Pan American market for long-range aircraft stimulated the American aviation industry, most notably in developing the comfortable, 60-passenger "Clipper, " with which Pan American pioneered service in the mid-1930s both across the Atlantic and via the Pacific to Manila.

Inevitably, Pan American became deeply involved in American foreign policy as World War II approached. There was constant competition over new markets with government-controlled foreign airlines, which contended that Trippe was building a global empire to strengthen American diplomatic and military power. Japan, for example, was angered, first when Trippe bought the China National Aviation Corporation in 1933, and again when he established links to British South Pacific territories after 1939. Simultaneously, the New York-Lisbon Clipper flights became famous, and very lucrative, as one of the few neutral routes into a Europe at war.

Pan American, now linked to the Air Force's global Air Transport Command, became a major contract carrier for the government after Pearl Harbor, particularly in ferrying planes from northeastern Brazil across Africa to the Middle East. Pan American even inaugurated air travel for a president, carrying Franklin D. Roosevelt to and from the Casablanca conference in early 1943. With its German and Italian rivals destroyed, and British and French international airlines greatly weakened financially, Pan American emerged victorious after 1945. But its international monopoly had ended as its American competitors learned the skills of oceanic flight when drafted by Washington into the war effort.

Trippe tried to revivify the "chosen instrument" concept by making Pan American (renamed Pan American World Airways in 1949) into a regulated monopoly, with the federal government owning 49 percent of the stock, but the plan died. In 1950, just as foreign air competitors were reaching American shores, he was refused the right to fly domestically, with the reliable income that this would generate. In 1952 Trippe encouraged mass tourism across the North Atlantic to Western Europe by instituting tourist class fares, with installment purchases after 1954. Volume flights required larger aircraft, and Trippe, having developed commercial jet service in the late 1950s, bought the first Boeing 747s in 1966.

But Trippe's desire to create a vast global system, servicing virtually every airport everywhere without strong regard for volume or profit, combined with a growing foreign and American competition to which Pan American could not adjust. There were major difficulties in the 1960s, with half-filled aircraft and shrinking revenues. Trippe retired in 1968, after 41 years at the helm, and died on April 3, 1981. His empire went downhill. A proposal that the shah of Iran buy it in 1975 was rejected. It filed for bankruptcy early in 1991 and ceased flying later in the year.

Further Reading

Trippe and American overseas aviation in general have attracted much study. Sweeping, popularized biographies are: Charles Kelly, Jr., The Sky's the Limit (1963); Robert Daley, An American Saga: Juan Trippe and His Pan American Empire (1980); and Marylin Bender and Selig Altschul, The Chosen Instrument: Pan Am, Juan Trippe, The Rise and Fall of an American Entrepreneur (1982). More scholarly are Richard Caves, Air Transport and Its Regulators (1962); R. E. G. Davies, A History of the World's Airlines (1964); and Wesley Phillips Newton, The Perilous Sky: U.S. Aviation Diplomacy in Latin America, 1911-1931 (1978).

Juan Terry Trippe (1899-1981) circa 1918

Trippe, Time, 1933

Juan Trippe surveying his office globe.

Juan Terry Trippe (June 27, 1899 – April 3, 1981) was an American airline entrepreneur and pioneer, and the founder of Pan American World Airways, one of the world's most prominent airlines of the mid-twentieth century.

Contents 1 Early years 2 Years at Pan Am 3 Death 4 Personal life 5 References 6 External links

Early years

Trippe was born in Sea Bright, New Jersey, on June 27, 1899, the great-great-grandson of Lieutenant John Trippe, Captain of the USS Vixen.^[1][2] Although it is commonly believed Trippe was Cuban in whole or part, he was actually Northern European in ancestry and his family settled in Maryland in 1664.^[2] He was named after his mother's Cuban stepfather. Trippe graduated from The Hill School in 1917, and then Yale University in 1921. While at Yale, he was a member of St. Anthony Hall and of Skull & Bones society.

After graduation from Yale, Trippe began working on Wall Street, but soon became bored. After receiving an inheritance he started working with New York Airways, an air-taxi service for the rich and powerful. Along with some wealthy friends from Yale, Trippe invested in an airline named Colonial Air Transport. Interested in operating to the Caribbean, Trippe created the Aviation Company of the Americas. Based in Florida, the company would evolve into the fledgling Pan Am, then known as Pan American Airways.

Years at Pan Am

Main article: Pan American World Airways

Juan Trippe was one of the last of the colorful group of innovators, pioneers, and visionaries (including William A. Patterson, Jack Frye, Robert F. Six, C.R. Smith, and Eddie Rickenbacker) who built the airline industry into what it is today^{[citation needed]}

Pan Am's first flight took off on October 19, 1927, from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, in a hired Fairchild FC-2 floatplane being delivered to West Indian Aerial Express in the Dominican Republic. The return flight from Havana to Key West, in a Pan Am Fokker F.VII, took place Oct. 29, being delayed from the 28th by rain.

Later, Trippe bought the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) to provide domestic air service in the Republic of China, and became a partner in Panagra. In the 1930s. Pan Am became the first airline to cross the Pacific Ocean with the famous Clipper flying boats.

Trippe served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the airline for all but about two years between the founding of the company and the Second World War. "Sonny" Whitney, a stockholder, managed to seize this position. He later regretted his action and allowed Trippe to retake it. Trippe failed to pardon Whitney for a long time. At one point, he even agreed to meet Whitney for lunch for a reconciliation but changed his mind and returned shortly after departing from his office in the Chrysler Building.

Pan Am continued to expand worldwide throughout World War II, being one of the few airlines that was largely unaffected by the war.

Trippe is responsible for several innovations in the airline world. A firm believer in the idea of air travel for all, Trippe is credited as the father of the tourist class in the airline industry, and was the driving force behind Pan Am's formation of the InterContinental hotel group^[3].

Trippe quickly recognized the opportunities presented by jet aircraft and ordered several Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 airplanes. Pan Am's first jet flight was operated in October, 1958 by a 707 out of Idlewild International Airport (now JFK) to Paris. The new jets allowed Pan Am to introduce lower fares and fly more passengers.

In 1965, Trippe asked his friend Bill Allen at Boeing to produce an airplane much larger than the 707. The result was the Boeing 747, and Pan Am was the first customer.

Originally, Trippe believed the 747 would ultimately be destined to haul cargo only and would be replaced by faster, supersonic aircraft which were then being developed. The supersonic airliners failed to materialize with the exception of the Concorde and Tupolev Tu-144 and the 747 became the iconic image of international travel. In 1965, Trippe received the Tony Jannus Award for his distinguished contributions to commercial aviation.

Trippe gave up presidency of the airline in 1968. He continued to attend meetings of the Board of Directors and maintained an office in the company's Park Avenue office building. In later years, he was portrayed by Alec Baldwin in Martin Scorsese's film, The Aviator.

Death

Trippe died on April 3, 1981, in New York, New York, and is buried in Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. In 1985, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom by United States President Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Trippe was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1990.^[4]

Personal life

Trippe was a member of the Saint Andrews Golf Club in Scotland and president of the Maidstone Club in East Hampton, New York, from 1940 to 1944. His wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Stettinius Trippe (1904-1983) was the sister of United States Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. They had four children, Elizabeth ("Betsy"), John Terry, Charles White, and Edward Stettinius Trippe, who now resides in Tucker's Town, Bermuda, where he is executive director of the Tucker's Point Club and serves on Bermuda International Airport's advisory board.^[5][6] Trippe also had twelve grandchildren, including artist Jim Trippe.

References

1. ^ "Juan Trippe, 81, Dies; U.S. Aviation Pioneer", The New York Times, April 4, 1981. Accessed February 17, 2008.
2. ^ ^{a b} "Merchant Aerial". Time magazine. July 31, 1933. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,753876-4,00.html. Retrieved 2009-03-24. 
3. ^ "A Trippe Down Memory Lane"
4. ^ Fortune Magazine 1990 Business Hall of Fame
5. ^ Hill, René (March 7, 2009). "Gala to benefit hospital". The Royal Gazette. http://www.royalgazette.com/siftology.royalgazette/Article/article.jsp?sectionId=80&articleId=7d933b33003000a. Retrieved 2009-03-24. 
6. ^ Chaplin, Julia (June 19, 2005). "Going to Bermuda". The New York Times. http://travel.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/travel/19going.html?scp=2&sq. Retrieved 2009-03-24. 

External links

• Time 100: profile of Juan Trippe
• Inc. Magazine profile of Juan Trippe

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