Originally Posted by
Airbubba
Back in the 1980's Pan Am flew a lot of those press charters.
Contrary to some belief, although all the major US carriers up to that time, and beyond, had substantial numbers of long range and widebody aircraft, many of these were only fitted out for US operations and did not have over-ocean navigation or safety equipment. This gradually reduced as the other carriers picked up intercontinental work, but they still only fitted the minimal subset of their fleets necessary. Pan Am was different, of course, and all their fleet had the full set of equipment (diluted quite a bit when they took over National), and they also had handling arrangements in all major points worldwide.
The other group that had the full capability was the US charter carriers, who did military and other charters worldwide, but they generally only had charter-density cabins and thus weren't suitable from another point of view for such work.