Eastern Air Lines, also colloquially known as Eastern, was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution, it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Eastern was one of the "Big Four" domestic airlines created by the Spoils Conferences of 1930, and was headed by World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker in its early years. It had a near monopoly in air travel between New York and Florida from the 1930s until the 1950s and dominated this market for decades afterward.
During airline deregulation in the late 1970s and early 1980s, labor disputes and high debt loads strained the company under the leadership of former astronaut Frank Borman. Frank Lorenzo acquired Eastern in 1985 and moved many of its assets to his other airlines, including Continental Airlines and Texas Air Corporation. After continued labor disputes and a crippling strike in 1989, Eastern ran out of money and was liquidated in 1991.
American Airlines obtained many of Eastern's routes from Miami International Airport to Latin America and the Caribbean, while Delta Air Lines, Eastern's main competitor at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, acquired many of Eastern's Lockheed L-1011 TriStar aircraft. USAir acquired 11 of Eastern's 25 Boeing 757-225 aircraft.
Eastern pioneered hourly air shuttle services between New York City, Washington, D.C., and Boston in 1961 as the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle. It took over the South American routes Braniff International following Braniff's closure in 1982 and served London Gatwick in 1985 via its McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 "Golden Wings" service. Although Eastern announced on its March 2, 1986 timetable that it intended to initiate service to Madrid, effective May 1, 1986, it never commenced. The only scheduled transatlantic service Eastern provided was Miami to London Gatwick, commencing on July 15, 1985 and discontinuing the following year, in 1986, replaced with codeshare flights from Atlanta on British Caledonian Airways.
History
Origins
Eastern Air Lines was a composite of assorted air travel corporations, including Florida Airways and Pitcairn Aviation. In the late 1920s, Pitcairn Aviation won a contract to fly mail between New York City and Atlanta, Georgia on Mailwing single-engine aircraft. In 1929, Clement Keys, the owner of North American Aviation, purchased Pitcairn. In 1930, Keys changed the company's name to Eastern Air Transport. After being purchased by General Motors and experiencing a change in leadership after the Airmail Act of 1934, the airline became known as Eastern Air Lines.
Growth under Rickenbacker
By 1937, Eastern's route system stretched from New York to Washington, Atlanta, and New Orleans, and from Chicago to Miami. In the same year, it operated 20 daily flights and returns, every hour on the hour, between New York and Washington; the flight time was one hour, twenty minutes, one-way.
In 1938, World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker bought Eastern from General Motors. The complex deal was concluded when Rickenbacker together with Sideny Shannon presented Alfred P. Sloan with a certified check for .
Rickenbacker pushed Eastern into a period of growth and innovation; for a time Eastern was the most profitable airline in the post-war era, never needing state subsidy. In the late 1950s Eastern's position was eroded by subsidies to rival airlines and the arrival of the jet age. On October 1, 1959, Rickenbacker's position as CEO was taken over by Malcolm A. MacIntyre, a brilliant lawyer but a man inexperienced in airline operations.' Rickenbacker's ouster was largely due to his reluctance to acquire expensive jets as he underestimated their appeal to the public. A new management team headed by Floyd D. Hall took over on 16 December 1963, and Rickenbacker left his position as director and chairman of the board on December 31, 1963, aged 73.
In 1956, Eastern bought Colonial Airlines, giving the airline its first routes to Canada.