The new owners of one of the world’s most iconic travel brands, Pan American World Airways, are making good on their promise to deliver a taste of the much-heralded—and sorely missed—golden age of travel.
Following its successful return to the skies in 2025 with a private-jet journey that closely traced Pan Am’s original transatlantic routes, Pan Am—which is also developing a Pan Am hotel in Los Angeles, an airport lounge in New York, a wide assortment of vintage-inspired Pan Am merchandise, and a cruise partnership—this month announced the launch of “Pan Am Journeys.”
These new luxury trips are multiday private-jet expeditions that, like Pan Am’s first private-jet journeys last year, will follow the routes that made Pan Am synonymous with global travel. The first departure under the Pan Am Journeys brand will be a return to Africa in partnership with luxury safari operator SafariScapes.
“A Journey to Reimagine Africa” will begin in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, with private game drives and hot-air balloon rides during the Great Migration. The itinerary will also feature a private guided exploration of Victoria Falls followed by safaris in Botswana’s Okavango Delta and Linyanti Reserve. The trip ends in South Africa, with stays in Johannesburg, a three-night journey aboard the Rovos Rail, and visits to Cape Town and the nearby wine lands.
The 19-day expedition will depart on July 19 from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), where the company is also opening a private lounge, and will return on July 9. The all-inclusive trip, which promises “rare access, private aviation, and curated immersive experiences,” is priced at $129,00 per person, based on double occupancy. The trip will take a maximum of 42 guests.
Craig Carter, CEO of Pan Am Global Holdings, parent company of Pan American World Airways, said the Africa trip is the first of several the company plans to announce for 2027, including a journey to the South Pacific from San Francisco along a route that Pan Am used to fly. Probable stops will include Hawai’i, Guam, and French Polynesia.
Since the relaunch of the iconic brand last year, Carter said it has been resonating with travelers and consumers of all ages, who are buying Pan Am’s vintage-style travel bags, luggage tags, clothing, and even Lego sets en masse.
In addition to flights, cruise line Holland America has teamed up for a monthlong cobranded 28-night “Pan Am 100th Anniversary Legendary Voyage” Caribbean cruise in October 2027 that traces Pan Am’s early-20th-century Clipper routes in the region. Pan Am flew throughout the Caribbean in the 1930s and ‘40s on Sikorsky S-40 and S-42 planes, also known as “flying boats” due to their boatlike design and ability to land on water.
The company, which represents the fourth attempt at relaunching the brand since its original bankruptcy in December of 1991, currently makes the journeys with a leased Boeing 757-200 that has been reconfigured with all lie-flat business-class seating.
Additionally, this most recent reincarnation of Pan Am has orders in for several Airbus A330s and A320; the company expects to fly about 16 planes in the next five years, according to Carter. With the expanded fleet, Carter said the expectation is to operate both Pan Am Journeys trips as well as scheduled charters out of Orlando and Miami.
