Eastern Air Lines

Eastern Air Lines was one of the "Big Four" US domestic carriers, dominant on routes between the north-east and Florida for decades. Heavy debt, deregulation, the Texas Air takeover and a crippling 1989 strike left it bankrupt, and it ceased operations at midnight on 18–19 January 1991.

How it started

Eastern was assembled from earlier companies, among them Florida Airways and Pitcairn Aviation. According to Wikipedia, Pitcairn (founded 19 April 1926) won a contract in the late 1920s to carry mail between New York and Atlanta in single-engine Mailwing aircraft. Clement Keys, owner of North American Aviation, bought Pitcairn in 1929 and renamed it Eastern Air Transport in 1930. After a change of ownership to General Motors and the Airmail Act of 1934, it became Eastern Air Lines.

First World War flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker bought the airline from General Motors in 1938. By 1937 the route map already stretched from New York to Washington, Atlanta and New Orleans, and from Chicago to Miami.

The heyday

Eastern was one of the "Big Four" domestic airlines and, as Wikipedia puts it, had a near monopoly on New York–Florida travel from the 1930s into the 1950s. It was also a launch customer for new aircraft: it was the first airline to fly the Boeing 727, on 1 February 1964, the first US operator of the Airbus A300, and the launch customer for the Boeing 757 in 1983. Its "hockey stick" livery arrived in the mid-1960s, and the Lockheed TriStar, known in the Caribbean as "El Grandote", became a mainstay.

On 30 April 1961 it began the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle between New York, Washington and Boston, with no reservations needed and an extra aircraft wheeled out if a flight filled. It became the official airline of Walt Disney World. Eastern took over Braniff's South American routes in 1982, and by 1985 it served 26 countries on three continents. Its only scheduled transatlantic service, Miami–London Gatwick, ran from July 1985 to 1986. A 1960s-to-1980s Wikipedia revenue table shows passenger-miles rising from 1.6 billion in 1951 to 33.1 billion in 1985. A peak fleet size is not given in the sources we checked.

What went wrong

• Jets and debt. Rickenbacker was pushed out of the chief executive role in 1959, largely because he had been reluctant to buy expensive jets. Later, the 1977 Airbus A300 and 1983 757 purchases left heavy debt; Wikipedia says Eastern was paying over $700,000 in interest daily by early 1986.
• Deregulation and rivals. After 1978 Eastern faced low-fare competitors such as People Express, and its Atlanta hub was in costly competition with Delta.
• Texas Air. Frank Borman agreed to sell Eastern to Frank Lorenzo's Texas Air in 1986. Labour relations worsened, and on 4 March 1989 Lorenzo locked out the machinists. Pilots and flight attendants struck in sympathy, and Eastern filed for bankruptcy protection on 9 March.
• Asset sales and loss of control. The Shuttle went to Donald Trump for $365 million in May 1989, and American Airlines bought the Latin American routes for $471 million in May 1990. Lorenzo lost control in April 1990 when Martin Shugrue was appointed trustee. A court examiner concluded Texas Air had shortchanged Eastern in several transactions.

The last flight

A "100 Days" advertising campaign in mid-1990 lifted bookings by 73%, but did not save the airline. The Washington Post reported that after a 22-month struggle Eastern ceased all scheduled operations at midnight, with airport managers told of the closure only the previous evening. The sources differ on details: Wikipedia's infobox gives 18 January 1991, while its text says midnight on Saturday 19 January; the Post's account of a closure "last night", published on 19 January, points to the night of 18–19 January. Staffing figures also differ, with the Post citing 19,000 employees and Wikipedia 18,000, of whom 5,000 lost their jobs at once. The final route and flight number are not documented in the sources we found.

What happened next

There was no successor airline, but the assets were scattered. American took the Latin American and Caribbean routes from Miami. Delta acquired many of the TriStars and the Atlanta gates, Northwest took the Washington National gates, and USAir bought 11 of the 25 Boeing 757s. The shuttle continued as the Trump Shuttle, and in 1989 Eastern also agreed to sell 16 DC-9s and gates to Midway Airlines. The closure removed many airline jobs in the Miami and New York areas. For more, see Simple Flying.

Sources: Wikipedia: Eastern Air Lines, The Washington Post: Eastern ends half century of service, Simple Flying: 30 Years Ago Today: Eastern Air Lines Ceases Operations