Talaat Captan’s Pan Am Experience has been written up by travel editors around the world, and one of the more colorful accounts came from Hong Kong. In its Post Magazine travel section, the South China Morning Post published a feature by Charley Lanyon titled “The Pan Am Experience: take a flight of fancy to the ’70s, golden age of travel.” The piece credits Captan, the founder and CEO of Air Hollywood, as the creator of the experience, and walks readers through an evening aboard a 1970s-style Pan Am 747 that never leaves the ground. New Zealand’s NZ Herald later carried the story for its own readers. Here is our summary of what the article covered, with some context from the studio’s history.
A dinner flight on a film set
The article describes the Pan Am Experience as a dining event built around the style of Pan Am travel in the 1970s. Lanyon gently questions whether that decade was really the “golden age” of flying, but he is clear about the idea behind it. According to the piece, Captan created the experience to bring back the feeling that air travel could be a pleasure, and he told the magazine the aim was to remind people of the days when flying was fun
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That goal fits the way Captan has built his businesses. Air Hollywood began in 1998 as a studio devoted to one niche: giving film and television productions realistic airports and aircraft cabins to shoot in. The story of how that started is told in How Talaat Captan Turned a Ground Control Setback into Air Hollywood. The Pan Am Experience took those same sets and opened them to the public as an evening out.
From check-in to the Clipper Club
The SCMP feature follows the evening in order. Guests check in and receive luggage tags and boarding passes styled after the originals. Before boarding, they gather for drinks in the Clipper Club, a lounge filled with Pan Am memorabilia. Then they board the 747 cabin itself. Lanyon notes that most of the props on board are genuine vintage pieces, and the rest are careful replicas.
Much of that authenticity comes from the collection of Pan Am enthusiast Anthony Toth, whose decades of work recreating a 747 cabin made the experience possible. We wrote about his collection in TechEBlog on Talaat Captan and the Pan Am Experience, and about another detailed review in CNN Travel on Talaat Captan and the Pan Am Experience.
A real sound stage, still in use
One point the article makes clearly is that the “flight” happens on a working sound stage in Los Angeles. Lanyon observes that this might disappoint someone hoping to actually travel, but it is a treat for film fans. The stage is still used regularly by productions, and many movies have filmed their in-flight scenes there.
After the meal, the article says, guests can look at more memorabilia, including full fuselage sections that serve as film sets, and take a tour of filming locations. The one title the piece names is the 1980 comedy Airplane!. For a wider look at the productions that have used the studio over the years, see Films and Shows Made at Talaat Captan’s Air Hollywood.
The menu and the entertainment
The writer takes a light, playful tone when describing the food and drink. The menu he lists includes shrimp cocktail, chateaubriand and a dessert cart with cakes and pies. He also notes that drinks flow freely all evening, and that this is a big part of the fun.
Lanyon points out that this is not a flight where passengers settle in with a book. The evening works as dinner theater, with something happening throughout. On the night he attended, that included a fashion show of Pan Am uniforms through the decades and an aviation trivia contest, which he describes as surprisingly engaging.
Tickets by class
As on a real airline, seating is sold by class. At the time of the article, the lowest fare was US$475 for two people, while the upper deck cost US$875 for two. The upper deck came with swivel seats and an extra caviar course. Lanyon jokes that the price is close to a real flight from Los Angeles to New York, and the NZ Herald version made a similar comparison with a trip to Auckland. Prices and schedules have changed since then, so the current details are best checked at panamexperience.com.
Why the coverage matters
The SCMP review is not a puff piece. It is skeptical in places, teasing the idea of a golden age and the cost of the ticket. That is part of what makes it useful. Even a writer who arrived with doubts came away describing an evening that was fun, well staged and full of real aviation history. It also shows how far the Pan Am Experience has traveled as a story, reaching readers in Hong Kong and New Zealand as well as across the United States.
The Pan Am name has since returned to the headlines for another reason. Captan is one of the executives working to bring Pan American World Airways back, a story we follow in Pan Am at 100: Talaat Captan and the Road to 2027. More about Captan’s role at the experience is on the Talaat Captan page at the Pan Am Experience.
The full SCMP feature is available at the link below.
