San Francisco International Airport's Airline Museum
Unbeknownst to many travelers who pass through San Francisco Airport, there is a small airline museum worth visiting in its international terminal.
I saw Marc off in the airport the other day and before he went through security, we both paid it a leisurely visit. We had been there before a few times but those visits were always done in a hurry right before we left for our vacation somewhere.
The museum is small and only has a few exhibits on the first floor. It in fact doubles as a library too. But, should you find yourselves in the airport with lots of free time before takeoff, go and pay it a visit. After all, it's free!
A huge picture of the famous China Clipper which was built for Pan Am for its first ever Trans-Pacific flight from San Francisco to Manila with stops in Honolulu, the Islands of Midway, Wake, and Guam last 1935.
There were two model airplanes on exhibit. One was a vintage UNITED Airlines passenger plane (above) while the other is Southern Cross (below), the plane once flown by Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew on the first ever trans-Pacific flight to Australia from the US Mainland last 1928 over 7250 miles.
The gigantic globe showing the countries Pan American flew to
This was my personal favorite. The exhibit about Pan Am and TWA, once the two airline giants who fiercely competed with each other for nearly half a century over international travel.
I heard of Pan Am right when I was still a young boy. Every time we saw somebody off at the Manila International airport, I saw passengers with Pan Am tickets in hand. Everyone I knew seemed to only travel on this airline, my famly included. The name, for me, denoted such prestige. It left such an impression I too wanted to fly on it when I first visited the United States back in 1989 from Madrid where I was residing at the time, Fortunately for me, there were hundreds of flights out of Spain to the US back then.
It came as a complete surprise to me when Pan Am completely ceased operations in the early 1990s. I had already returned to the US that time as a permanent resident and had flown it four times before. To this day, I cherish my Pan Am frequent flyer mileage card and keep it with utmost care in my travel wallet as a souvenir
These days, I fly UNITED more times than any other airline both domestic and international.
