About the event:

The Pan Am Museum is a special place where the history of the pioneering airline and the people that built commercial aviation as we know it is brought to life through artifacts and exhibits. Our museum is a chronological walk through Pan Am’s 64 year history, with exhibits from each of the airline’s eras, beginning with photos and descriptions of early land planes to our famed flying boats, through World War II, to post war prop liners, particularly our Stratocruiser, to the jet age with the 707, and finally to our 747 exhibit now in progress. There are small artifact exhibits in between.

Opened in 2016, the Pan Am Museum’s mission statement, “to educate, celebrate, and inspire present and future generations by preserving historical and diverse personal stories of Pan American World Airways,” shows its commitment to preservation, inclusivity, education, and equity. 

Though the six-decade history of the airline is best remembered for its numerous technical advancements in aviation history and standards for luxury air travel, it is the rich personal stories of Pan Am and on-going outreach that resonate and inspire. PAMF’s focus is not only on the stories of pilots and flight attendants, but of ground crews, the world-wide station operations and the service industry which supported the airline—often breaking racial and gender barriers in the workplace to advance civil rights in the hiring of both domestic and international personnel and in risk taking to work covertly with the United States government, carrying out American foreign policy decisions in times of global upheaval and terrorism.

About Linda Freire

Linda Freire is the Board Chair, Co-Founder and Museum Director of the Pan Am Museum Foundation. Her long career in the airline industry started when she was a flight attendant for Pan Am in the 1980s. Since then, she has worked as a Manager Personnel, Asst. at JFK and a Base Manager Inflight Services and Regional Director of Hospitality Services for Delta Airlines.