"Reef Fish" wrote:


Eastern went belly up for reasons of incompetent Management!

There was more to the issue than simply the effectiveness or
ineffectiveness of management. Yes, there were many things the
management could have done better, but they were caught by a basic
change of rules (deregulation) and a legacy of high interest rates,
along with intransigent unions.

Eastern had purchased a large number of new aircraft when interest rates
were high, in anticipation of major expansion, and were therefore caught
with a high cost fleet when deregulation was dropped on them, along with
a the drop in interest rates which benefitted their competition.

There wasn't much Eastern's management could do to quickly bring their
costs in line with the low cost carriers that could lease low cost
aircraft at low interest rates, flown by pilots that accepted much lower
pay and fewer non-pay restrictions.

They had been flying along fat and happy, only to have the rules changed
out from under them at the same time as interest rates dropped. They
were trapped, with little chance of recovery, no matter how good their
management was.