The newest owners of Pan American World Airways are charting a course back to profitability – and to the skies.
To revive the company, the four executives — Craig Carter, Steve Craig, Talaat Captan and Jeff Cova — are launching new business ventures that utilize Pan Am’s brand recognition, such as bringing the airline back to life as a scheduled charter service, opening a Pan Am travel agency in Laguna Hills and reopening the dinner theater business called The Pan Am Experience.
Read more in the Dec. 8 print edition.
See the photos below for what’s currently in the works for Pan Am (Courtesy of Pan American World Airways).
An Inside Look at the Return of Pan Am
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(Rendering) The Pan Am Hotel by Hilton is currently under construction. Chairman Craig Carter, also of Newport Beach-based Craig Realty, is turning a former office building into the Pan Am-branded hotel that is slated to open in late 2026.
The flight crew and Pan Am executives, including one of the brand's new owners and Chief Executive Craig Carter (center front), before taking off on a 13-day international trip called "Tracing the Transatlantic." Two travel organizations, Criterion Travel and Bartelings, hosted a luxury, international trip that recreated Pan Am’s historic transatlantic flights to locations such as Bermuda, Lisbon, London and Marseille.
For the "Tracing the Transatlantic" trip, Criterion Travel and Bartelings chartered a Pan Am-branded 757-200 private jet to take 50 passengers on the 13-day journey. The all-inclusive tickets ranged from $59,950 to $65,500 and sold out in days, according to the new Pan Am owners. Chief Executive Craig Carter and Chairman Steve Craig decided to absorb the business and call it Pan Am Journeys. They have a second trip planned for next year, this time traveling the transpacific route.
Business partners Anthony Toth and Talaat Captan came together in 2013 to build The Pan Am Experience, which recreates a Pan American World Airways flight of the past. Toth and Captan rebuilt the interior of a 747-200 jet to host airline themed "dinner parties" in the San Fernando Valley. After the venue closed following Covid, Pan Am's new owners plan to reopen the experience led by Captan.
