Pan Am tries out Tampa-Havana service
Airline is given warm welcome as long-sought service begins
On December 3, 1933, the City of Tampa, Florida was delighted to announce that Pan American Airways had added a new Tampa-Havana leg to its regularly scheduled international service.
For years, the city had struggled to develop its aviation capabilities, recognizing the promise of aviation for future growth and development. Now, Pan Am’s presence revived hopes that Tampa might at long last be able to realize its dream of becoming Miami’s rival as a hub of international aviation on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Pan Am announced that it would begin trial service from Tampa in October 1933. The city spent $6,500 converting part of Ballast Point into a seaplane base, complete with a ramp, service facilities, terminal office and radio station. On December 3, Pan Am’s huge 40-passenger Sikorsky S-40 American Clipper arrived from Miami for the maiden voyage. Regular service began the following morning.
At left: Pan American Clipper, October 1933 (newsletter), image courtesy UM Richter Library Pan Am Digital Collection
Operations begin
The actual Tampa-Havana flights were made by Pan Am’s 20-passenger Consolidated Commodore flying boats, operating three round trips a week. In fact, it was the arrival of Pan Am’s new and larger Sikorsky flying boats in Miami that freed up the Commodores for the Tampa-Havana route. Flight time was 3 hours and 15 minutes and tickets cost $45/round trip. The route was direct across the Gulf to Havana—exactly as it appears on the U.S. Department of Commerce airway map showing scheduled passenger routes in operation in July 1934.
Passenger demand not enough to sustain operation
Alas, Tampa’s dream of becoming a Gulf Coast hub of international travel was still not to be. Passenger demand did not meet expectations, and without the Air Mail subsidies and feeder service from a domestic airline such as that enjoyed with Eastern Air Lines in Miami, the Tampa-Havana trial proved to be unsustainable.
The original agreement required three weekly flights for three months, but Pan Am kept that schedule going for about five months before reducing it to once a week during the off-season. In January 1935, Tampa and Pan Am tried again, restoring three weekly flights for another winter trial. But traffic still failed to meet expectations. When that agreement expired March 31, Pan Am again reduced the schedule to once weekly and finally suspended Tampa-Havana service on April 25, 1935.
Pan Am and Tampa continued for several years to discuss reviving international service from the city’s developing Peter O. Knight Airport, but it never happened.
The wait continues
Tampa would have to wait more than eleven years before it again enjoyed direct scheduled air service to Havana. In May 1946, as the Civil Aeronautics Board reorganized and greatly expanded U.S. airline routes into Latin America after World War II, the Tampa–Havana route was awarded to National Airlines.