The Pan Am brand takes to the skies with new private-jet tours

The storied Pan American Airways brand is in the air this summer, resurrected by a newly launched tour operator that wants to introduce the Pan Am experience to a new generation of travelers.
Beyond Capricorn, an operator created by Gary Barteling of private jet specialist Bartelings and Steve Ridgway of tour operator Criterion Travel, is operating the 12-day Pan Am private-jet itinerary, which took off Tuesday from New York JFK.
Pan Am, which was founded in 1927, shuttered in 1991. The operators formed a licensing partnership with Pan American World Airways, which licenses the Pan Am name and logo, and aims to "revive the glamour of travel's golden age."
Gary Barteling of Bartelings, a private jet specialist, co-founded Beyond Capricorn, a new tour operator that will operate Pan Am itineraries. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Beyond Capricorn
On the tour, 35 travelers will explore stops made on the airline's original transatlantic routes, including Bermuda, Lisbon, Marseille, London and Foynes. The second departure date is June 27. Beyond Capricorn accepts travel advisor bookings and pays a 10% commission
"This itinerary, created by our partners at Bartelings and Criterion Travel, continues to garner great interest from the travel advisor community," said Craig Carter, CEO of Pan American World Airways. "Designed to honor the unmatched legacy of Pan Am, the private jet journey will be a memorable experience for their most discerning clients."
Steve Ridgway of Criterion Travel cofounded Beyond Capricorn, which will operate Pan Am-branded private jet journeys. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Beyond Capricorn
Beyond Capricorn was born of a shared appreciation between Barteling and Ridgway of the Pan Am glory days and designed the operator to sell the reincarnation of the brand.
"It's a brand that we came up with around 'beyond Capricorn,' the idea being, it's over the horizon, it's opening your eyes and traveling the world," Bartering said. "And it just seemed a good way of establishing a solid platform to promote Pan Am in one single way."
The Pan Am experience
Passengers will fly on a Boeing 757 chartered from Icelandair and enjoy business-class, lie-flat seats. The tour operator blends classic Pan Am elements with modern travel. Travelers will see the flight crew wearing Pan Am uniforms and will receive their tickets in vintage branded sleeves.
Barteling said the idea to operate an itinerary under Pan Am's name was first considered pre-pandemic and then again in 2023. He and Ridgway already had formed a relationship through Criterion chartering Barterlings planes for its itineraries.
"Back when a lot of us began in the travel business, Pan Am was the preeminent carrier," Ridgway said. "There's an amazing amount of loyalty amongst former Pan Am people, but also a very high level of awareness amongst those of us who were around when they were the top airline, not just in the U.S., but in the world. It's interesting, too, because what's happening now is, it's catching on with young people."
Beyond Capricorn will operate a holiday itinerary, Christmas Markets of Europe, a Pan Am Journey by Private Air, in December. The 10-day trip will visit Christmas markets in Portugal, Austria, Germany and Latvia.
It also plans to launch a transpacific flight next year on a Boeing 767. The 20-day itinerary costs $94,495 and will begin April 11 in San Francisco. Travelers will visit Honolulu, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Darwin, Sydney, Auckland and Fiji.
Though not yet available for bookings, Beyond Capricorn plans to operate an around-the-world trip in 2027 to celebrate 100 years of Pan Am. The journey will begin in San Francisco and visit Tahiti, Sydney, Bangkok, Delhi, Cairo, Casablanca and end in Miami.

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an hour ago

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Yahoo

an hour ago

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‘It's inhumane': The airports making passengers queue for up to five hours

Will you be thanking Sir Keir Starmer this summer? The beleaguered prime minister has made much of his diplomatic deal with EU bureaucrats to allow British travellers to use e-gates when travelling to the Continent, thus avoiding unnecessary queues when heading off on holiday. While it's true that some of the more doom-laden predictions of travel chaos after Brexit haven't come to pass, regular travellers can attest to the fact that winding passport queues aren't exactly unknown at European airports. Just look at the recent scenes in Portugal, where British travellers have been left waiting in line for up to three hours in order to show their documents. Faced with a backlash from frustrated travellers, Portuguese authorities have been quick to blame the situation on temporary problems with their security systems. 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For an insight into how regularly things can go wrong when it comes to passport queues, just look at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. The granddaddy of European airports might not have it worse than other major hubs on the continent, but it does publish detailed briefings on waiting times and delays. When you look at the most recent incident reports, you can see that the most common cause of passport delays is the most predictable one: a shortage of border guards. Combine that with heavy traffic during busy periods like school holidays and it's not uncommon to see two or three days per month where waiting times spike to around an hour. The data also shows how major sporting events contribute to airport chaos. Last summer, there were queues of up to 80 minutes during the days before the Paris Olympics, as the airport was forced to divert resources to service the arriving VIP delegations. During the 2023 Rugby World Cup, passengers queued until 1am – more than one hour after the last flight of the evening. When you speak to frequent flyers, you'll find that most have their own candidate for the tardiest airport for passport control. 'Madrid is one airport where I've experienced delays,' says Rob Burgess, editor of loyalty point bible Head for Points. Like Brussels, the airport receives a lot of traffic from outside of Europe, with a barrage of direct flights from Central and South America. 'Unfortunately, a lot of the biggest queues correlate to those destinations where large volumes of British holidaymakers go,' says John Strickland, aviation expert and founder of JLS Consulting. 'Right now, Portugal and Spain seem to be particularly bad for long and slow-moving queues.' That's certainly the case in ever-popular Tenerife, where this year's holiday season kicked off with the now familiar tradition of hefty passport queues at the airport. Back in May, there were reports of British passengers waiting for up to two hours in the sweltering heat as families jostled for bottles of water to keep them cool. In response, Spanish authorities have pledged to increase the number of border guards so they can process travellers more quickly. With the school holidays just around the corner, we should see if the plan has worked. In the meantime, will Sir Keir's e-gates deal come riding to the rescue? Not quite. For all the fanfare around the announcement, ministers have confirmed that the current arrangements will not change until later this autumn, when the EU is finally set to unveil its long-awaited digital border system (known as the EES, or Entry Exit System). Even then, it will depend on the discretion of individual countries whether British nationals will qualify for the e-gates. And that's assuming that the system doesn't succumb to technological gremlins on the particular day you arrive. Passengers who arrived at Heathrow or Gatwick on May 7 last year saw the chaos that can unfold when the e-gate system is hit by a technical outage. Until then, hopeful travellers can look on the bright side: data from Paris and elsewhere suggests that 90 per cent of travellers will breeze through the passport gates in less than 15 minutes. Even those smaller airports in the Canary Islands can manage the traffic the vast majority of the time. But for the minority who end up drawing the short straw this summer, it could prove to be a very testing start to their holiday. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.