PORTSMOUTH, N.H. – A judge has halted Pan Am Airlines’ attempt to transfer its passenger service to a subsidiary, calling the move “a direct attempt to destroy a union.”

The airline is appealing.

U.S. District Judge Joseph DiClerico’s order adopted recommendations by a magistrate last month.

DiClerico ordered that pay and working conditions for pilots and crews of the Portsmouth-based airline be restored to what they were in July. He barred Pan Am, which is unionized, from having its nonunionized subsidiary, Boston-Maine Airways, fly Boeing 727s or other large jets on routes that have been flown by Pan Am. And he barred Pan Am from transferring any of Pan Am’s planes to Boston-Maine.

The magistrate concluded the planned shift of planes and service from Pan Am to Boston-Maine was intended to get out of a contract with the Airline Pilots Association.

In his order Wednesday, DiClerico found statements by a former Pan Am manager, Linda Toth, persuasive. Toth testified that David Fink, president of both airlines and their parent company, Guilford Transportation, “greatly disliked” the union and once spoke of getting rid of “the union jackasses,” Magistrate James Muirhead found.

He and DiClerico rejected the airline’s characterization of Toth as “a serial liar.”

“Fink’s statements alone provide sufficient support for the proposition that (Pan Am’s plans) represented an attempt to destroy a union,” DiClerico wrote.

The company will appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, company lawyer John Nadolny said Thursday. Other than to say the company disagrees with the decision, he declined to comment because the case remains in court.