Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The tale of Boeing's high-risk flight into the jet age

Juan Trippe led Pan American World Airways into the jet age as the launch customer for both the Boeing 707 and the Boeing 747. Trippe thought the globe, not a flat map, must become fixed in the public's mind to understand just how jet travel was shrinking the world. He and Allen reached the 747 deal on a fishing trip to Alaska in the mid-1960s. "If you build it, I'll buy it," Trippe told Allen, who replied: "If you buy it, I'll build it."