Pan Am’s Chief Expects ’88 Loss
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NEW YORK — Pan American World Airways will report a loss for all of 1988 but will have enough money to see it through the slow winter months, the airline’s chairman and chief executive said Thursday.
Thomas G. Plaskett, speaking to the New York Society of Airline Analysts, said that at the end of the third quarter, the cash balance at Pan Am Corp., the airline’s parent, was $163 million, of which $75 million was in the airline’s treasury. Those figures compare to balances of $289 million and $196 million, respectively, at the end of the same period of 1987, he said, but the totals for last year included $125 million in newly borrowed money.
Recent agreements with its labor unions, Plaskett said, will save the airline $180 million a year, and, he added: “I am confident that we will have sufficient liquidity to support our operation through this winter season.”
Most of Pan Am’s income comes from its transatlantic routes during the summer travel months, and revenue traditionally slows radically during winter. Thus, every year there are rumors that the airline will run out of cash before business picks up in the spring.
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