Pan Am established its provisional seaplane base in Cabo Ruivo in 1938,[4] at the southeast edge of today's Parque das Nações.

[citation needed] The first scheduled commercial passenger flight, from Port Washington, landed on 29 June 1939 on the water airstrip of the Cabo Ruivo Seaplane Base.

This Atlantic flight from New York to Lisbon was operated by a Boeing 314 "Dixie Clipper" of Pan American World Airways, with 22 passengers and 11 crew members on board.

[12] With the enormous increase in the importance of terrestrial air traffic the era of seaplanes ended and the flight operations in Cabo Ruivo were discontinued in the late 1950s.

[13] On 22 February 1943, the Yankee Clipper seaplane of Pan American World Airways was destroyed in a crash while landing on the Tagus River.