‘2025 Tracing the Transatlantic Voyage’ is a luxury trip on a Boeing 757-200 next year

Unlike most flights in the airline’s heyday, however, this trip will a private jet kitted out for just 50 people.

It will make multiple stops, on a package including overnight hotel stays. The fare for the 12-day adventure is $59,950 (€55,040) based on two sharing – or 10pc more for solo travellers.

The journey, called ‘2025 Tracing the Transatlantic Voyage’, departs on June 27 next year and returns on July 8.

Pan-Am cabin crew at Berlin in 1969. Photo by Chris Hoffmann/picture alliance via Getty Images

It is being put together by US group travel specialist Criterion Travel for the owner of the Pan Am brand, Craig Carter, and will use a privately chartered Boeing 757-200, configured with just 50 seats.

The outbound route emulates some of the original flying boat routes, with stops in Bermuda, Lisbon and Marseille en route to London.

On the westbound return, passengers will visit Foynes, Co Limerick – a former flying boat base on the Shannon Estuary.

The Foynes Flying Boat Museum last year reopened after a €5m upgrade with a revamped aviation museum, B314 flying boat replica, cinema, flight simulators and Maureen O’Hara exhibition celebrating the late actor’s achievements and connection to the estuary sea plane location.

Participants will stay at Dromoland Castle on their Irish stopover, with stays in New York at the Waldorf Astoria, and in London at the Savoy.

Then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the reopening of the Foynes Flying Boat Museum in 2023. Photo: Arthur Ellis

Mr Carter, who is chief executive of Pan American World Airways – now a brand-licensing company – will be on board.

He said on Instagram: “Relaunching Pan Am requires a careful balance of honouring its storied past while innovating for the future, so that it resonates with both our longtime fans and new customers.”

The Pan Am boss vows it will be “the first of many exclusive themed flights back into the luxury travel space”.

Pan American World Airways was launched in 1927 with a single link between Key West in Florida and Havana, Cuba.

The visionary co-founder, Juan Trippe, oversaw its expansion to become effectively the US national airline, with a globe-girdling network of, initially, flying boats, which were gradually replaced by conventional propellor aircraft and, in time, the jet airliner.

For decades under Trippe’s leadership, Pan Am enjoyed huge success – being the first airline with a round-the-world route and the launch customer for the 747 Jumbo jet.

Map: Criterion Travel

Pan Am also became the leading German domestic airline, connecting West Berlin with West Germany at a time when Lufthansa was not permitted to operate the route.

It even had a sub-fleet of Boeing 727 planes based at Heathrow for serving destinations in Continental Europe.

But competition from budget airlines weakened Pan Am.

In 1988, a London-New York jet was blown up over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 270 people and further damaging the airline’s reputation.

The downturn in air travel caused by the first Gulf War hit fare revenue.

In a bid to survive, Pan Am sold off the family silver: the lucrative shuttle operation connecting New York with Washington DC and Boston, its flagship “Worldport” terminal at Kennedy airport and the prized routes to Heathrow.

But by the end of 1991, all operations had ceased.

– Additional reporting by Pól Ó Conghaile

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