Pan am connection

[NeedaVacation03]

Has anyone ever flown on the Pan am clipper connection? They are coming to Columbus and the price is great, but I don't want to try it without checking it out. Please let me know if you have ever flown them. Also they fly into Orlando/Sanford airport. Does anyone know anything about that airport? TIA.

 

[Ted and Holly]

We flew them a couple times several years ago. Between Portsmouth NH and Sanford. I would not recommend it.

We never got off the ground on time. One flight, the outer windshield of the ancient 727 broke mid-flight. We had to make an emergency landing at Raliegh/Durham, sit on the runway for an hour while Pan Am negotiated with the airport for a terminal and then wait more than 5 hours for a replacement to be flown down from New Hampshire.

Sure, problems happen, but long delays and mechanical issues were fairly common for Pan Am back then. We chose to drive 45 minutes to fly out of Manchester on Southwest, rather than 15 minutes to Pease (with free parking) to fly Pan Am.

I don't know if they have improved their record over the last 3 years or so, but I have a hard time flying an airline that buys its planes from other airlines after they retire them.

Ted

 

[goofy4tink]

We flew PanAm out of Worcester, Ma, back in 2001. It had rained the night before. As we waited in the empty terminal, a PanAM rep came over to the 9 of us that were waiting for this plane and said..."We have an issue here. It seems that if the plane lands here to pick you guys up, it will have to stop in Allentown Pa in order to refuel since it will use so much extra fuel taking off on this wet runway. So, it's either this stop or you guys wait for a different plane, which could take several hours." Seems the runway in Worc. is very short..duh..it's on the top of a small mountain people!!!, and in order to take off they would use almost double the fuel they would use if it were to be dry. Well, we all opted for them stopping for us and then stopping in Pa. We did arrive at Sanford about an hour late. But, it was a decent flight. Too bad no one uses Worc. airport anymore.

As far as Sanford airport goes..it's a very nice, small airport. Easy to get around in. It was about an hour drive to WDW though, so our towncar cost us almost double what we pay when we travel from MCO to WDW.