[4] Because he was named "Juan", he is widely assumed to have been of Hispanic descent, but his family was actually Northern European in ancestry and settled in Maryland in 1664.

After completing training in June 1918, he was designated as a Naval Aviator and was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy Reserve.

In 1922 he raised money from his old Yale classmates, selling them stock in his new airline, an air-taxi service for the rich and powerful called Long Island Airways.

[9] Once again tapping his wealthy friends from Yale, Trippe invested in an airline named Colonial Air Transport, which was awarded a new route and an airmail contract on October 7, 1925.

Trippe served as the chairman of the board of directors of the airline for all but about two years between the founding of the company and World War II.

At one point, he even agreed to meet Whitney for lunch for a reconciliation, but changed his mind and turned around shortly after departing from his office in the Chrysler Building.

A firm believer in the idea of air travel for all, Trippe is credited as the father of the tourist class in the airline industry, and was the driving force behind Pan Am's formation of the InterContinental hotel group.

The new jets allowed Pan Am to cut the flight time nearly in half, introduce lower fares, and fly more passengers in total.

Originally, Trippe believed the 747 would ultimately be destined to haul cargo only and would be replaced by faster, supersonic aircraft which were then being developed.

The supersonic airliners failed to materialize, with the exception of the Concorde and Tupolev Tu-144, and the 747 became an iconic image of international travel.

[18] An endowed chair at the Yale University School of Management is the "Juan Trippe Professor in the Practice of International Trade, Finance, and Business".

"Pat" Patterson, Eastern Airlines' Eddie Rickenbacker, TWA's Howard Hughes and Delta Air Lines' Collett E. Woolman.