Pan Am clips its wings

Let us bow our heads. The venerable old Pan Am airline brand may finally have breathed its last. New Hampshire-based Boston-Maine Airways Corp., which was the most recent airline to resurrect the brand name of the renowned carrier after its collapse in 1991, suspended flights as of Friday, according to a message on the airline's website. Last one out, please hit the lights.

For most airline customers, this is not such a big deal: Pan Am had scheduled service only to Hanscom in Bedford, Portsmouth, N.H., and Trenton, N.J. And, frankly, not even so much of that.

Newspapers in Trenton, N.J., and Portsmouth, N.H., traced the financial and management problems the carrier has faced over the years, culminating in a Feb. 1 notice from the Feds that they were looking to pull the plug on the carrier's flight certificate. The company has until March 3 to file a reply.

How the mighty have fallen. They used to be a real player. Kind of like the Yankees... Know what I mean?
(Paul Makishima, Globe staff)