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By Jason Cochran August 20, 2016 Original Story Five miles north of the major Hollywood studios, in an industrial area of not-at-all-scenic Pacoima, California, Pan Am is flying again. You’ve been here before—or at least, you’ve seen it many times. Air Hollywood is where the entertainment industry films airline scenes. Here, in a nondescript suite of warehouses, jet cabins of every era and style have been rescued from jet junkyards in the desert, assembled on sound stages, wired for lights and cool air, and are again ready for action. Hundreds of major movie or TV productions involving in-flight drama have recorded here, from Bridesmaids to The Wolf of Wall Street to, yes, Snakes on a Plane. And by night, one of […]

By Siobhan Reid May 18, 2016 Original Story Turn Back Time on a Pan Am Plane Long before the days of cramped seats, slovenly attire and crappy in-flight food, airplane travel was, well, glamorous. Travelers wore pillbox hats and heels, in-flight food was restaurant-grade and there was no such thing as too much champagne. But don’t take it from us. Experience it for yourself at Air Hollywood’s Pan Am Experience in Los Angeles. Offering monthly dinner parties aboard a replica Pan Am Jumbo Jet from the 1970s, the restaurant serves dinner and cocktails by flight attendants decked out in original 1970s Pan Am uniforms. There’s also an after-dinner movie and the chance to view huge collection of airline memorabilia. A […]

By Daniel Hajek May 17, 2016 Original Story The jet sitting at Air Hollywood’s studio near the Burbank airport in Southern California was once the charter plane of the Los Angeles Lakers. These days, it serves a much different role — mostly as the set for movies and TV commercials. But the group walking on board the day I recently visited wasn’t there to film a scene. They were part of a two-day class for fearful fliers. For participant Ronnie Michel, it was the first time in six years that he’d seen the inside of a plane. “You hear the plastic shaking, the weird noises,” he noted. “I can see the top of people’s heads sitting in front of me. […]

By Elva Saray May 9, 2016 Original Story

By Erik Olsen March 22, 2016 Original Story When Martin Scorsese needed to shoot a scene of a drunken Leonardo DiCaprio on a jet plane for the film The Wolf of Wall Street, he could have built his own fake fuselage, or rented a 747. Of course, that would also have cost several hundred thousand dollars. So the director turned to Air Hollywood instead. It’s a 60,000-square foot cluster of low-slung warehouses on the outskirts of LA, where filmmakers can choose from four complete airplane interiors, including cockpits, bathrooms and working galleys. There is also a fake terminal, a security gate (with a half dozen variations of admonishing TSA boarding signs) and an expansive prop room offering authentic-looking boarding passes, […]

By Nicole Standley February 22, 2016 Original Story What year is it again? I’m going to let you in on a little secret and you are going to LOVE me for it. The next time you are looking for something special to do for Saturday date night, you need to hop aboard Pan Am flight 001 for an evening of air travel you will never forget. And guess what? Your feet won’t even leave the ground. Sounds nuts, right? Well maybe just a little bag of complimentary roasted peanuts. The Pan Am Experience based outside of Hollywood is a must-try for all those bitten by the wanderlust bug, but can’t scratch the itch due to lack of vacation days. Pan Am may have ceased […]

By Michele Laufik December 9, 2015 Original Story The liquor brand used the Rolling Stones’ legendary 1972 tour as inspiration for its latest products and events. Amidst the holiday season bustle at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Jose Cuervo is looking to stand out with an unusual activation: a pop-up lounge made from repurposed aircraft parts. The experiential promotion, dubbed the Rolling Stone Tour Plane Experience, is part of a wider campaign for the liquor brand, one inspired by the Rolling Stones 1972 tour, which was informally known as the “cocaine and tequila sunrise tour.” To commemorate that notorious time, Jose Cuervo recently released two limited-edition bottles of Cuervo Especial and Reserva de la Familia featuring the Stones’ famous lapping […]

By Phil Scott July 20, 2015 Original Story The Pan Am Experience aims to recreate a bygone era when airline food was good. For her birthday in October, May Gin Ng and husband Roger Lee flew from San Francisco to Los Angeles to dine on airline food inside a stationary Boeing 747. “It was the best birthday present I have received in many years,” she gushes. It also sounds like the kind of deal Tom Sawyer offered his friends to get them to whitewash his fence, but it’s called The Pan Am Experience, cooked up by Pan Am collector Anthony Toth. “As a young child I flew on a Pan Am 747 and I instantly became obsessed,” says Toth, an […]

By Noah Mark July 12, 2015 Original Story Most long time readers know that my family heritage with aviation runs a few generations. My granddad worked for Pan-Am way back when and my uncle was a pilot (not with flying experiences from “back in the day”). So when Noah Mark (a frequent contributor here on the blog) told me about the adventure he was going on I really wanted to go, but I was in Sweden for much of May this year so it did not work. But after seeing his guest post, I think I need to book time to go one day! – René As a frequent flyer and aspiring #AVGeek I cannot tell you exactly when I […]