Pan Am a.k.a Boston Maine Airways
Boston-Maine Airways suspends Pan Am service; The Clipper Connection air service offered flights between Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Posted: March 7th, 2008 10:31 AM PDT
TOM BELL Staff WriterPortland Press Herald (Maine)
On Friday, Boston-Maine Airways Corp. - a regional airline and sister company of Pan Am Railways - suspended its Pan Am Clipper Connection, which had offered air service between Massachusetts and New Jersey with a small fleet of leased Jet Stream 3100 aircraft.
The company also manages a charter flight service and will continue to do so until current contracts expire next month. The suspension in air service came after the U.S. Department of Transportation decided to revoke the company's air carrier certificate last month.
The department said the company doesn't have the financial ability to continue operations and lacked ''managerial competency'' and ''proper regard for the laws and regulations governing its services.''
In its appeal filed Monday, Boston-Maine Airways Corp. said it is proud of its safety record and that many of is problems were due to a senior company official who - without the knowledge of company president David Andrew Fink and other company officials - lied to company officials and also provided falsified financial data to the Department of Transportation.
Fink's son, David Armstrong Fink, is president of the Pan Am Railways. Timothy Mellon, an heir of the Mellon banking fortune, is the principal owner of the Boston-Maine Airways Corp. as well as Pan Am Railways.
In its appeal, Boston-Maine Airways said that it is getting out of the air carrier business.
Maine Aviation of Portland has a tentative agreement, subject to further due diligence, to buy the Boston-Maine Airways Corp. The acquisition would be for Boston-Maine's Federal Aviation Administration certificate, which would allow Maine Aviation to offer passenger service between any two cities.
The Pan Am brand is not part of the sale.
In 1998, Guilford Transportation Industries bought the Pan Am brand from the bankrupt Pan American World Airways.
Pan American World Airways was the principal international airline of the United States from the 1930s until its collapse in 1991.