RE: The Pan Am helicopter shuttle. I happened to be working at the time for Pan American World Services (PAWS), a subsidiary that had all the branding of Pan American World Airways without the benefits. PAWS ran the E60th Street "Metroport" and employed a much-younger me as a lineboy/driver/heliport operator (in that order).
The shuttle began, using Omniflight's 222's and later the WG-30's. It was going like gangbusters until the unfortunate day in September of 1982 when one of the pax wandered into the tail rotor of a running 222 while both pilots were belted into their seats. The passenger did not survive.
Subsequently, all of us who were working that day were summoned up to the (then) Pan Am Building for a meeting with (among others) Ed Acker, the airline's CEO. There was a lot of grimacing and tsk-tsk'ing about what a shame the accident was. PAWS people (I won't name names) assured Mr. Acker that everything had been done to prevent this accident, but it was "just one of those unfortunate things." Acker seemed to agree.
But me being Mr. Big Mouth (even back then), I meekly raised my hand and mentioned that we actually could have done better, because we hadn't given the passengers any kind of briefing.
There were some puzzled looks by the PAA people in the room. It was asked by someone very high up in their chain-of-command (Acker himself or possibly a lawyer) what type of briefing the passengers had prior to be let out on to the ramp with running helicopters; surely they were warned about the tail rotor? And then commenced a certain shuffling of feet and averted glances.
Admittedly, the FAR's only specify that passenger briefings be done prior to takeoff, not prior to boarding. PAWS personnel were not required to brief pax; if it was required by FAR then it was the pilot's responsibility. Omniflight was operating under the assumption it was a "91" (non-commercial) operation since the service was ostensibly "free."
It came out at that meeting that neither Omniflight nor Pan Am were doing *any* passenger briefings. The meeting did not end on a good note. Shortly afterward, big signs in multiple languages appeared in the passenger waiting areas, and pre-boarding briefings were instituted.
However, just down the East River at the 34th Street heliport (made infamous with the recent crash of that Bell 206 there), New York Helicopter (a distant, no-relation follow-on) of the original New York Airways) was running a similar "scheduled" service between Manhattan and the three New York area airports (primarily for TWA, which explains the red and white livery of NYH aircraft).
I left "Pan Am" and went to work for NYH as an SIC on the slow, clunky S-58ET. The Pan Am guys were always bragging about how fast their sleek, modern, retractable gear 222's were. Heh. We'd both leave Manhattan at the same time bound for JFK. As the 222 was touching down at the Pan Am Worldport, we'd be on short-final for the TWA (now JetBlue) terminal. On short legs, extra cruise speed doesn't count for much.
Good times.
The FAA ultimately said that Omniflight/PAWS had been running a 135 charter operation without, oh...ANY of the items (training, documentation, CERTIFICATE) that is required for such things. The service was then discontinued. Pan Am (the airline) never liked it all that much anyway. It was hugely expensive, and we never got the impression that the airline felt that it pumped up First Class bookings all that much. If anything, it was just an advertising thing.