At the peak of its success during the early 1970’s, international airline Pan was well known for its trademark slogan, “World’s Most Experienced Airline.”  And some of that experience dates back to the birth of Foreign Air Mail.

In the 1920’s, as airmail was ‘taking off’ all across America, the U.S. government was eager to develop mail service between North and South America. On March 8, 1928, Congress passed the Foreign Air Mail Act to regulate that international service.  A few weeks later, the Postmaster General solicited bids for companies to take over a wide-ranging network of mail routes all across Latin America and the Caribbean.

It was the catalyst that created that provided the impetus for three major air carriers to merge into one.  Atlantic, Pan American, and the Aviation Corporation united as the Aviation Corporation of the Americas. A new Pan American Airways Incorporated was created to act as the main operating subsidiary of the new corporation, and it was the ‘darling’ of President Calvin Coolidge’s administration.

The Federal government looked very kindly at Pan Am, and considered it the United States’ “chosen instrument” for foreign policy.  Airmail was seen as an important strategy to facilitate U.S. economic expansion into Latin America and the Caribbean…and Pan Am was considered the right tool for the job.  To a large degree, Pan Am’s success was the direct result of provisions in the Foreign Air Mail Act.

The Act decreed that only airlines capable of operating on a scale and manner that would “project the dignity of the United States in Latin America” would be granted the right to carry international mail.  The Act also specified that contracts would only be given to companies that had been invited for operations by the countries of Latin America.

In these two areas…Pan Am had no competitors.

The U.S. government, in fact, awarded Pan Am every foreign airmail route for which bids were invited. These included routes to Havana, Cuba; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Nassau in the Bahamas; Mexico City; and Santiago, Chile.