View Full Version : Did Pan Am close in an election year?
Interested that people in Oz dont think the government will not let Ansett go broke in an election year. Does anyone know if Pan Am or any other carriers have closed doors in election years?
I take it you mean that the Government won't let them go out of business in an election year?
It certainly appears that they will let them, John Howard has stated most definitely that there will be NO taxpayers money to save a private company, especially a foreign owned company, and rightly so too......
Plastic Bug
8th Sep 2001, 07:25
Eastern folded up it's tent in January, 1991. Pan Am slipped it's mortal coils December 4th, 1991.
In the same year, the Feds bailed out an auto plant in upstate New York.
The final nail in Pan Am's coffin was the refusal of Delta to loan 25 million dollars, which was slated to erase the remaining Pan Am debt.
A few days later (about 4 to be exact), United got Pan Am's South American routes and Delta bought the New York/Mexico City route for... 25 Million Dollars (which they didn't actually fly for about 4 years).
Oh, the election year question... 1991 was not a major election year in the U.S.A.
PB
Whiskery
8th Sep 2001, 08:44
It would make no difference if it were not an election year. The voter backlash would last a long time if the Government of the day bailed out a private,foreign owned Company in Australia. We have seen a number foreign owned industries close down or move offshore here in Australia in recent times.
Ansett is no different,it is just bigger.
If you count the number of jobs lost in foreign Companies here in Oz, in the car industry,textile manufacturing and electronics industry, the number of casualties would be high. It's just not 10,000 in one hit.
I feel very sorry for the employees at Ansett but as with any employee in today's volatile market place,it seems nothing is "forever" anymore.
What is for sure, it is not the Government's job to bail out every private enterprise business in Australia,with taxpayer's money, that go broke because of bad corporate decisions and poor business practise. Especially if that Company is not Australian anyway.