Editing Pan Am (section)

===Post-war expansion and modernization===
[[File:Pan Am L-049 Constellation at London.jpg|thumb|right|Pan Am [[Lockheed L-049 Constellation]] ''Clipper Great Republic'' at [[Heathrow Airport|London Airport]]]]
[[File:Boeing 377 N1033V PAA Heathrow 12.9.54.jpg|thumb|right|Pan Am [[Boeing 377|Boeing 377 Stratocruiser]] ''Clipper Seven Seas'' at [[Heathrow Airport|London Airport]] in 1954]]
The growing importance of air transport in the post-war era meant that Pan Am would no longer enjoy the official patronage it had been afforded in pre-war days to prevent the emergence of any meaningful competition, both at home and abroad.<ref name="PostWar_PanAm_48">''Aviation News (Pan American Airways: Part 2)'', p. 48, Key Publishing, Stamford, November 2011</ref>

Although Pan Am continued to use its political influence to lobby for protection of its position as America's primary international airline, it encountered increasing competition – first from [[American Overseas Airlines|American Export Airlines]] across the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] to Europe, and subsequently from others including [[Trans World Airlines|TWA]] to Europe, [[Braniff International Airways|Braniff]] to South America, [[United Airlines|United]] to Hawaii and [[Northwest Airlines|Northwest Orient]] to East Asia, as well as five potential rivals to Mexico. This changed situation resulted from the new post-war approach the [[Civil Aeronautics Board]] (CAB) took toward the promotion of competition between major US carriers on key domestic and international scheduled routes compared with pre-war US aviation policy.{{sfn|Bilstein|2001|p=169}}<ref name="PostWar_PanAm_48"/><ref name="HomeTurf">''Aviation News (Pan American Airways: Part 2 – South American problems)'', p. 50, Key Publishing, Stamford, November 2011</ref>

[[File:Pan Am DC4 Cipper.jpg|thumb|Pan American DC-4 at [[Piarco Airport]], [[Trinidad]] in the 1950s]]
[[American Overseas Airlines]] (AOA) was the first airline to begin regular landplane flights across the Atlantic on October 24, 1945. In January 1946, Pan Am scheduled seven [[Douglas DC-4|DC-4]]s a week east from [[LaGuardia Airport]], five to London ([[Bournemouth Airport|Hurn Airport]]) and two to Lisbon. The time to Hurn was 17 hours and 40 minutes, including stops, or 20 hours and 45 minutes to Lisbon. A Boeing 314 flying boat flew [[LaGuardia Airport|LaGuardia]] to Lisbon once every two weeks in 29 hours and 30 minutes; flying boat flights ended shortly thereafter.<ref group=nb>The 1/46 Air Traffic Guide shows the B314 to Lisbon, but a B314 book says PA's last transatlantic B314 was in December 1945.</ref>

TWA's transatlantic challenge—the impending introduction of its faster, pressurized [[Lockheed Constellation]]s—resulted in Pan Am ordering its own [[Lockheed Constellation|Constellation]] fleet at {{FXConvert|USA|750|k|year=1945|index=US-GDP|cursign=$|showdate=no}} apiece. Pan Am began transatlantic Constellation flights on January 14, 1946, beating TWA by three weeks.<ref name="PostWar_PanAm_48"/>

In January 1946, a flight from Miami to Buenos Aires took 71 hours and 15 minutes in a Pan Am [[Douglas DC-3|DC-3]], but the following summer, DC-4s flew [[New York Kennedy Airport|Idlewild]] to Buenos Aires in 38 hours and 30 minutes. In January 1958, Pan Am's [[Douglas DC-7#Design and development|DC-7B]]s flew New York to Buenos Aires in 25 hours and 20 minutes, while the [[National Airlines (NA)|National]]–Pan Am–Panagra DC-7B via [[Panama City|Panama]] and [[Lima]] took 22 hours and 45 minutes.<ref name="Timetable58"/> [[Convair CV-240 family|Convair 240]]s replaced DC-3s and other pre-war types on Pan Am's shorter flights in the [[Caribbean]] and South America. Pan Am also acquired a few [[Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commando|Curtiss C-46]]s for a freight network that eventually extended to Buenos Aires.<ref name="HomeTurf"/>

In January 1946, Pan Am had no transpacific flights beyond Hawaii, but they soon resumed with DC-4s. In January 1958, the California to Tokyo flight was a daily [[Boeing 377|Stratocruiser]] that took 31 hours 45 minutes from San Francisco or 32 hours 15 minutes from Los Angeles. (A flight to Seattle and a connection to Northwest's [[Douglas DC-7#DC-7C|DC-7C]] totaled 24 hours and 13 minutes from San Francisco, but Pan Am was not allowed to fly that route.)<ref name="Timetable58">[http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/pa/pa58/pa58.pdf Pan American Airways System Timetable] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120916042320/http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/pa/pa58/pa58.pdf |date=September 16, 2012 }} (pdf) January 1, 1958</ref> The Stratocruisers' double-deck fuselage with sleeping berths and a lower-deck lounge helped it compete with its rival. "Super Stratocruisers" with more fuel appeared on Pan Am's transatlantic routes in November 1954, making nonstop eastward and one-stop westward schedules more reliable.

In June 1947, Pan Am started the first scheduled round-the-world airline flight. In September, the weekly DC-4 was scheduled to leave San Francisco at 22:00 Thursday as Flight 1, stopping at Honolulu, [[Midway Atoll|Midway]], [[Wake Island|Wake]], Guam, Manila, [[Bangkok]], and arriving in [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] on Monday at 12:45, where it met Flight 2, a Constellation that had left New York at 23:30 Friday. The DC-4 returned to San Francisco as Flight 2; the Constellation left Calcutta at 13:30 Tuesday, stopped at [[Karachi]], [[Istanbul]], London, [[Shannon, County Clare|Shannon]], [[Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador|Gander]], and arrived LaGuardia Thursday at 14:55. A few months later, PA 3 took over the Manila route, while PA 1 shifted to Tokyo and Shanghai. All Pan Am round-the-world flights included at least one change of plane until [[Boeing 707]]s took over in 1960. PA 1 became daily in 1962–63, making different en-route stops on different days of the week; in January 1963, it left San Francisco at 09:00 daily and was scheduled into New York 56 hours and 10 minutes later. Los Angeles replaced San Francisco in 1968; when Boeing 747s finished replacing 707s in 1971, all stops except [[Tehran]] and Karachi were served daily in each direction. For a year or so in 1975–76, Pan Am finally completed the round-the-world trip, New York to New York.<ref>[http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1971/1971%20-%202249.html ''Pan Am global 747'', Air Transport ...] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112214723/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1971/1971%20-%202249.html |date=January 12, 2012 }}, ''Flight International'', October 28, 1971, p. 677</ref>

In January 1950, Pan American Airways Corporation officially became Pan American World Airways, Inc. (The airline had begun calling itself ''Pan American World Airways'' in 1943.)<ref name=miami>{{cite web|url=http://scholar.library.miami.edu/panam/history.html |title=Pan American World Airways, Inc. Records – History |publisher=University of Miami Libraries, Special Collections |access-date=June 1, 2009 |year=2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615063857/http://scholar.library.miami.edu/panam/history.html |archive-date=June 15, 2009 }}</ref><ref name="NewImage">''Aviation News (Pan American Airways: Part 2 – New name, new aircraft)'', p. 50, Key Publishing, Stamford, November 2011</ref> In September 1950 Pan Am completed the {{FXConvert|USA|17.45|m|year=1950|cursign=$|index=US-GDP|showdate=no}} purchase of [[American Overseas Airlines]] from [[American Airlines]].<ref name="PostWar_PanAm_48"/> That month Pan Am ordered 45 [[Douglas DC-6#Operational history|Douglas DC-6B]]s. The first, ''Clipper Liberty Bell'' (N6518C),<ref>''Aviation News (The Douglas DC-4, DC-6 and DC-7)'', p. 64/5, Key Publishing, Stamford, November 2011</ref> inaugurated Pan Am's all-[[economy class|tourist]] class ''Rainbow'' service between New York and London on May 1, 1952, to complement the all-[[first class (aviation)|first]] ''President'' Stratocruiser service.<ref name="NewImage"/> From June 1954, [[Douglas DC-6#Operational history|DC-6B]]s began replacing DC-4s on Pan Am's internal German routes.<ref name="Berlin1">[http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1972/1972%20-%202017.html ''BEA in Berlin''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120724005700/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1972/1972%20-%202017.html |date=July 24, 2012 }}, ''Flight International'', August 10, 1972, p. 180</ref><ref name="DC6B_THF"/><ref name="Berlin2">''Aeroplane – Pan Am and the IGS'', Vol. 116, No. 2972, pp. 4, 8, Temple Press, London, October 2, 1968</ref>

Pan Am introduced the [[Douglas DC-7#DC-7C|Douglas DC-7C]] "Seven Seas" on transatlantic routes in summer 1956. In January 1958 the DC-7C nonstop took 10 hours and 45 minutes from Idlewild to London, enabling Pan Am to hold its own against TWA's [[Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation|Super Constellation]]s and [[Lockheed L-1649 Starliner|Starliner]]s. In 1957, Pan Am started DC-7C flights direct from the West Coast of the United States to London and Paris, with a fuel stop in Canada or Greenland. The introduction of the faster [[Bristol Britannia]] [[turboprop]] by [[British Overseas Airways Corporation]] (BOAC) between New York and London on December 19, 1957, ended Pan Am's competitive leadership there.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.britishairways.com/travel/history-1950-1959/public/en_gb|title=British Airways – History and heritage (Home > History & heritage > Explore our past >> 1950–1959 (1957: 19 December)|publisher=British Airways plc, London|access-date=October 30, 2011|year=2011}}</ref><ref name="NewImage"/>

In January 1958 Pan Am scheduled 47 flights a week east from Idlewild to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and beyond; the following August there were 65.<ref name="Timetable58"/>