"Ron Natalie" wrote
Some have in the past for the larger aircraft.
For a while, Presidential airlines was staying
in business flying charters for democratic
candidates in the primaries.

When I joined PanAm in 1967, in addition to being the world's
largest international aircarrier, it was also the world's
largest charter aircarrier and the world's largest cargo air-
carrier. The 30 B-707 freighters were sold when the B-747s
arrived starting in 1970. The theory being that in addition
to a full load of passengers, the 747 belly would hold a load
of cargo equivalent to a 707. Unfortunately, the companies
that bought the freighters could afford to fly freight much
cheaper than could PanAm. The Teamster cargo handlers at JFK
didn't help the situation either, they stole at least 10% of
everything that passed through the JFK cargo terminal.

One of our "standing" charters was flying the presidential press
corp when they followed the president. We had about a dozen
selected flight attendants just for those flights.

During the three times that I was furloughed from PanAm, I flew
for half-a-dozen charter airlines that had bought the same 707s
that I had been flying at PanAm. Their cost was about half of
that at PanAm.....unions and all of that sort of stuff.

It just wasn't in PanAm's corporate structure to forsee that in
the future, cargo and low-cost travel would dominate.

Bob Moore
PanAm (retired)