Tourist class
Air travel was once reserved for the wealthy, but Trippe saw its true potential. He saw it as a form of mass transportation, carrying people to far-flung destinations and bringing them closer to new cultures.
Air travel can enslave the common man, or it can free him.
Mass travel by air may prove to be more significant to world destiny than the atom bomb. For there can be no atom bomb potentially more powerful than the air tourist, charged with curiosity, enthusiasm, and good will, who can roam the four corners of the world, meeting in friendship and understanding the people of other nations and races.
_— Juan Trippe
Trippe proclaims in his high and earnest voice: “The average man has been the prisoner of two keepers, time and money.” Having conquered time, Trippe hopes to cut fares so that anybody with a two-week vacation—the Detroit auto mechanic and the Oak Park schoolmarm—can spend it abroad.
— Time magazine; March 28, 1949; p.84
Trippe believed two things; he saw lower prices/higher volume as a better business model, and, I believe and as his speeches of the time profess, he had a genuine desire to democratize the airways and deliver air travel to the average salary earner and the global community.
— John Hill, E-mail interview
To realize his idea, Trippe created tourist class, selling its seats at more than half the regular price. He introduced it in 1948 on Pan Am’s New York - San Juan flights, and it became a major success.
In the beginning, however, Pan Am faced a lot of opposition. Its fellow airlines complained that Trippe was going to start a price war. The IATA (International Air Transport Association), which set airfares, was divided over Trippe’s idea. British airports closed their doors to Pan Am planes with tourist class.
Oddly, his fellow competing airline CEOs and government regulators weren’t interested in fare reduction ideas and wanted to keep air travel somewhat exclusive, because only a small segment of the population was flying and could afford it. — John Hill, E-mail interview
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Trippe succeeded in the end. After he threatened to leave the IATA and continue expanding tourist class service, the IATA agreed to the lower fares.
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In 1952, two-thirds of Pan Am’s transatlantic passengers traveled first-class; by 1954, [. . .] that same percentage flew tourist class. — Empire of the Air by Jenifer Van Vleck, p.218
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In 1958, Trippe took it a step further by introducing economy class. Economy fares were 20% lower than those of tourist class. As prices fell, in-flight service declined as well, but now even more people could fly.