Pan Am to offer Baltimore flight Airline to stop service to Allentown

BANGOR – In an industry more accustomed to news of layoffs and cutbacks as of late, Pan American Airways announced Thursday that it would begin nonstop jet service from Bangor to Baltimore next month.

Pan Am President Dave Fink said he hoped that news of the daily flight from Bangor International Airport to Baltimore-Washington International Airport would send a message to air travelers and an industry still reeling from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands in New York and Washington.

“I’m here to say the glass is half full,” Fink said, citing the “gloom and doom headlines” of reduced airline service as passengers opt to stay home or at least on the ground in the wake of the suicide hijackings. “The guys on the other side of the world can’t stop us and that’s all there is to it. ”

Beginning Dec. 6, the 7:20 a.m. flight from Bangor will arrive in Baltimore before 9 a.m. and continue to Florida’s Orlando Sanford International Airport, the airline’s most popular destination. After a stop at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, near Tampa, Fla., beginning Dec. 13, the 149-seat Boeing 727 will return to Baltimore by 7 p.m. and Bangor by 8:30 p.m., according to a spokesman for the Portsmouth, N.H.-based Pan Am.

As part of the new service beginning Dec. 6, Pan Am will drop its daily flight to Allentown, Pa., and redirect it to Baltimore.

The news capped about 18 months of talks between airline and city officials, who have watched a number of carriers scale back or suspend their operations at BIA since the September attacks. The attacks are largely responsible for a 16.5 percent drop in business from this time last year.

“We thought it could be awhile before we’d be hearing news like this for the airport,” said City Councilor Daniel Tremble, a member of the council’s business and economic development committee, at the morning news conference at BIA’s upper terminal. “We are absolutely delighted.”

One-way tickets from Bangor to Baltimore will begin at $99, the airline’s spokesman said.

More than adding another destination from Bangor, airport officials said it would provide a direct link with the busy Baltimore hub, which services nearly 700 domestic flights each day, including the popular discount carrier Southwest Airlines.

Interim airport director Rebecca Hupp said Thursday the Washington area is already one of the airport’s top 10 destinations, and she expected the direct link to be popular. Hupp said the timing of the Pan Am announcement was important for the airport, which in the past month has seen a reduction in service to Boston and a discontinuation of its turbo-prop service to Philadelphia.

“We expect that this is going to be a popular flight, with Maine and Canadian passengers seeking an affordable, comfortable and convenient way to travel to the D.C. area and beyond,” said Hupp, who after the news conference reviewed with Pan Am staff passenger numbers that put BIA as the airline’s second-busiest link.

Pan Am representatives said they chose to add the service based on the popularity of the airline’s daily flight from Bangor to Orlando, Fla. The new service simply requires the carrier’s existing flight from Bangor to stop in Baltimore rather than Allentown, Pa., before continuing to Florida.

U.S. Rep. John Baldacci, who before its cancellation used the U.S. Airways flight to Philadelphia, said he welcomed the new Clipper Class service to the capital area.

“It will open up the whole corridor,” said Baldacci, a member of the House Transportation Committee’s aviation subcommittee. “I see this as an opportunity.”