Some names evoke a particular era of travel long after that era has come to an end. Pan Am is one of them — while the airline of that name shut down decades ago, its name and logo can summon up a bygone moment of air travel, a retrofuturistic time when jetsetting around the world had a certain cachet. And even though the last flight from the original airline touched down in 1991, it isn’t necessarily surprising to hear that the brand’s had a second life.
Maybe a third, come to think of it. Earlier this year, Pan Am’s name and logo accompanied an international itinerary that flew travelers to a host of cities for a five-figure sum. It turns out that that’s not the only place you’re likely to see Pan Am’s iconography in the 2020s. This week brings with it the news that Pan Am is also taking on the form of a hotel.
The hotel iteration of Pan Am comes courtesy of the Austrian firm JP Hospitality Investors Club. “Last week at the Expo Real in Munich, we were able to present our new international brand: PAN AM HOTEL,” the company wrote in a post on LinkedIn. The company’s website touts its investment in hotels across Europe. Based on their comment in the same social media post about how “Airport Hospitality needs a new category,” it sounds like Pan Am Hotel locations will be airport-centric, which sounds fitting.
It’ll be a few years before travelers will be able to stay in a hotel under the Pan Am brand. As Denis Stackeusky reports at Hotels, JP Hospitality anticipates a 2028 opening date for the first of these properties.
Review: The TWA Hotel Won’t Send You Back to the Glory Days of Air Travel
The good and bad of turning the midcentury JFK landmark into an airport hotelAnd if the idea of a defunct airline brand being reborn as a hotel sounds familiar, it’s because Pan Am Hotel isn’t the only destination to take this approach. New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport is home to the TWA Hotel, which seeks to blend modern hospitality with the retro aesthetics of a bygone era for travel. 2028 is still a few years off; we’ll see if this group of investors are on to something with the latest Pan Am revival.
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