USA Today Forgets EA

BUFjets · Tue Sep 14, 2004 8:26 pm

There is a photo gallery of defunct airlines on-line in today's USA Today internet site. This particular piece was provided as a contrast or forshadowing of US Airways current situation. They showed examples of 13 different airlines that no longer exist today. They even included small guys like Kiwi, National, and Vanguard. I find it surprising they did not include one of the most relevant examples, Eastern Air Lines. In my opinion, that's a big omission.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/gallery/2004-09-14-defunct/flash.htm

They also didn't mention Piedmont.

BNE · Tue Sep 14, 2004 8:37 pm

Why they showed Valujet I have no idea. Angry

They also didn't mention Piedmont.

Because they didn't go out of business they just got acquired.

luv2fly · Tue Sep 14, 2004 9:07 pm

Well they mentioned both TWA and Reno and correct me if I'm wrong, but both of them went on to become part of AA..........

as739x · Tue Sep 14, 2004 10:05 pm

Come on All, does the press ever get anything right when it comes to aviation? They talk about airlines and show file footage of the wrong livery (which some people don't reconize) or even the wrong airline. My favorite is when they talk about a plane, but show the wrong one. I don't pay attention!

ASSFO

AA737-823 · Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:16 pm

Over 100 airlines have gone bust since 1978. Would you like USAToday to list and show slides for all of them?

I think they did a pretty good job of shoiwng recent history, coupled with some famous oldies. Eastern never had the name that Pan Am, TWA, or Braniff had; maybe that's why they were left out.

bobnwa · Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:25 pm

AA737-823,

"Eastern never had the name"

Eastern was larger than any of the carriers you mentioned and it surely had a big name with any aviation people I ever met!!!!

ATLhomeCMH · Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:46 pm

Yea, the fact they didn't mention EA is silly, considering EA was fairly comparable to TW in terms of size and notoriety...they mentioned ProAir, which I honestly had never even heard of until I read the article 2 minutes ago.

Letter to the editor, here I come.

dtwclipper · Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:56 pm

AA737-823,

"Eastern never had the name"

Be prepared for a lashing!!!!

EA was considered one of the BIG 3 of the US airline industry!

Harold Pitcarin and Ed Rickenbacker are rolling in their graves!

Launch customer for the 757, L1011 and first US operater of an Airbus. Massive operation in ATL and MIA, took over BN's Latin America ops.

Never had the name....I think you need to catch up on your history!!!

American 767 · Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:57 pm

I was pleasantly surprised to see two defunct carriers from Europe: Sabena and Swissair.
Other major carriers in the rest of the world that ceased operations include Air Zaire (they didn't have many aircraft, only one DC-10 and a few 737's but it was Zaire's flag carrier), Ansett and VASP.

Ben Soriano
Brussels Belgium

luv2fly · Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:58 pm

Yeah I thought Eastern would have been mentioned before the likes of ProAir and the second Midway was..... Also since they mentioned carriers that were bought out by others where is PeopleExpress?

7e72004 · Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:59 pm

They forgot Eastern...those bastards!! Big grin

ATLhomeCMH · Wed Sep 15, 2004 12:19 am

AA737-823,

"Eastern never had the name"

That was one of the most thoughtless remarks I've seen on this website. lol

Over 100 airlines have gone bust since 1978. Would you like USAToday to list and show slides for all of them?

No, but like everyone else has been saying...you don't leave out the majors.

rg828 · Wed Sep 15, 2004 1:46 am

Other major carriers in the rest of the world that ceased operations include Air Zaire (they didn't have many aircraft, only one DC-10 and a few 737's but it was Zaire's flag carrier), Ansett and VASP

I can assure that VASP is not defunct.

Not yet.

146crew · Wed Sep 15, 2004 1:55 am

If you look at picture 9, the National Sign at O'Hare. The remark says you won't see this sign at O'Hare anymore, however that sign still remains Smile

EA CO AS · Wed Sep 15, 2004 2:18 am

Eastern never had the name that Pan Am, TWA, or Braniff had

Is this amateur hour at airliners.net? Nuts

I suggest reading up on aviation history before making any more embarrassing posts.

American 767 · Wed Sep 15, 2004 2:20 am

RG828, yes you are right.
VASP is still in business, I thought they were not but I just checked in the database all pictures of VASP aircraft taken this year 2004 and there were a lot of them. According to what I saw, they have Boeing 737-200/300's and Airbus A300's but no more MD-11's. It seems like they don't fly long haul anymore, they no longer come to Brussels that I can assure, they seem to fly only within Brazil or within Latin America at the most.
Please correct me if I say anything wrong as I was not aware of VASP current situation today.

About Eastern, yes I also think it was silly not to mention it. Eastern was a major carrier and was like Dtwclipper says launch customer for B757 (with British Airways), L1011 and first US operator of an Airbus product, I add that they were also the launch customer of the B727 (with United).

Ben Soriano
Brussels Belgium

dtwclipper · Wed Sep 15, 2004 3:13 am

AA737-823,

Here are a couple of links to give you the heads up on

Eastern: The Wings of Man

http://airlines.afriqonline.com/airlines/310.htm

http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/Tech/Aviation/Airlines/Eastern.asp

http://www.airtimes.com/cgat/usb/eastern/gal/eagal70.htm

http://www.evair.com/ealhistory.htm

N766UA · Wed Sep 15, 2004 3:19 am

Eastern never had the name that Pan Am, TWA, or Braniff had

You're.....you're kidding, right? Eastern probably had more of a name than TWA or Braniff! Eastern was the airline on the east coast and on leisure markets. To say they "didn't have the name" or notariety is blasphemy.

Also, to include Pro Air (some podunk airline that lasted about 2 months) and not Eastern or Piedmont is insulting.

luv2fly · Wed Sep 15, 2004 3:37 am

Pro Air was around a lot longer than 2 months.

JAXpax · Wed Sep 15, 2004 3:52 am

It's just a fluff informational gallery.....

Geez... some people would think that aviation is supposed to consume the lives of all 294,000,000 Americans....

psa188 · Wed Sep 15, 2004 3:57 am

Well, after reading this thread and looking at the USA Today presentation, I can say that this thread is a tempest in a teapot. The photo gallery is titled "Whatever happened to..." Not "A comprehensive list of fallen-flag airlines". The photo captions explain what happened to the illustrated carrier, and the fact that certain airlines were omitted does not mean anything. There's nothing wrong with showing AA or QQ, either, since in the spirit of "Whatever happened to..." The authors explain that AA took those two airlines over.

JAXpax · Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:12 am

Good ol Bob Reding of Reno Air in that picture.... he survived the merger and went to AA Eagle as COO and has since been bumped up to mainline AA.

I must say that this photo slideshow is one of the more accurate and informative of USA Today's recent aviation stories.

BUFjets · Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:21 am

The context of the photo gallery was to conjure up memories people had of airlines they flew on or knew of in the past. The photo gallery would not have been in USA Today at all if not for the recent articles about US Airways filing CH. 11 again with rumors of Ch. 7.

With all this in mind, the best example to illustrate would be Eastern Air Lines.
Why? Because Eastern was the largest airline on the East Coast to shut down. Many people were stranded and many jobs were lost on the East Coast. Just as the situation would probably be if US Airways were to shut down.

That's why I just thought it odd for the author not to illustrate EA. I don't think it's a huge deal. Many of us here could probably have done a better job with the photo selection.

ATLhomeCMH · Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:23 am

Psa188:

I think we've already established that. The point of this entire thread has been that leaving out EA is either a big omission, or a balsy move on the part of the editor.

Keep that in mind.

N766UA · Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:24 am

Pro Air was around a lot longer than 2 months.

Ahh but you're missing the key point here: Nobody cares. Big thumbs up

skyhawk · Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:37 am

Bobnwa-I most certainly agree with you when you said that Eastern should have been mentioned in the pics, but for you to have the audacity to say that they were bigger that Pan Am or TWA, think again!!!

A340Spotter · Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:42 am

N766UA,

At the risk of starting a major argument here, the people, like me, that started Pro Air back in 1996 and lasted for 3-4 gutwrenching years cared.
Go back through all of those airlines that are mentioned and you'll find thousands that cared.

Pipe down before you attack a certain air carrier, podunk or not.

Jeffrey

N766UA · Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:54 am

Well sorry to offend you. Point being, however, ProAir and Eastern are beyond polar opposites.

bobnwa · Wed Sep 15, 2004 5:36 am

Skyhawk,

I stick by my statement. Eastern was larger than Pan Am, TWA or Braniff. In fact at one point, it was the largest airline in the world measuring passengers boarded.

FlyMeToTheMoon · Wed Sep 15, 2004 5:39 am

So let's look at it this way. If USA Today would run the same story in 1 year and in 5 years who else would be added to that list? Assume that by then Eastern would be included to satisfy us propeller heads at anet.

US is the obvious. Any more thoughts?

dtwclipper · Wed Sep 15, 2004 5:50 am

Eastern was Bigger than Pan Am for example:

In 1982 PA carried 12.8 Million pax
EA carried 35 Million, and BN closed in May of the same year, TW was also no where near the size of EA, I am still looking for figures.

Clipper002 · Wed Sep 15, 2004 6:07 am

All right all ready... Enough is enough. We really don't need all of this childish name calling. I worked for Pan Am for 29 years and I agree the EA was definitely bigger than PA. I also feel that EA should have been mentioned in the article as it was one of the most prominent U. S airlines in history. To try and compare the likes of a national carrier to those of a part 135 carrier are ridiculous. That doesn't mean that the employees of the smaller carrier shouldn't be proud of their product, because they should. But in terms of how much a shutdown of an airline impacts the economy as well as the traveling public, I think you'll all agree that the larger old time legacy carriers had a far bigger impact than some of the small regionals.

My former boss at ACA started ProAir and my former co-director at Pan Am in MIA was their DTT station manager. So I have a few friends that saw this fail and I'm sure they felt as bad as the rest of us. There's no point in bashing these folks. Remember, we're mostly in this business because we love aviation, not to make a buck. Express your opinion but please let others express theirs without having to called all types of names. I think if you check the profiles of some these people, you'll see that they probably weren't even born when some of this took place much less affiliated with any of the carriers mentioned.

Ed

7e72004 · Wed Sep 15, 2004 7:12 am

The thing is, they have eastern on the list, then someone is going to want to know about Piedmont, then Ozark, then Ozark #2, then National, then Vanguard...the list would be neverending!

OzarkD9S · Wed Sep 15, 2004 9:21 am

Hmmmm....TWA, Pan Am, Eastern, National (1). All gone. US in Chapter 11 again and DL on the brink. Maybe USA Today should have ran an article concluding that major/legacy carries should shy away from the NE/Florida markets or face extinction?

And I have no comment on the "Eastern/Big Name" bitchfest above.

jmc1975 · Wed Sep 15, 2004 11:22 am

Come on All, does the press ever get anything right when it comes to aviation?

Just ask Bryant Gumbell just after AA579 crashed in Nov. 2001 when he said, "...the aircraft involved was a Boeing 767, commonly refered to as the Airbus..."

What brilliance!!

aer · Wed Sep 15, 2004 12:01 pm

In the end, I guess we can agree that PA and EA are missed.

USAir734 · Wed Sep 15, 2004 12:38 pm

Eastern Air Lines was the largest airline at one point (at least in terms of passengers). I would say that alone would give them a name that is on level with Pan Am or TWA if not more. Just because EA didn't have the worldwide brand recognition that th others did doesnt mean they weren't as big. After all this was an american newspaper. they should have known about Eastern.

JetMechMD80 · Wed Sep 15, 2004 3:18 pm

Eastern was the largest airline in the free world, not only in terms of passengers served, but also fleet size. At one point.

R.I.P EAL

DETA737 · Wed Sep 15, 2004 3:34 pm

Eastern was definately bigger than Pan Am or TWA. In 1973 they were the third largest airline in the freeworld flying 464,410,000 revenue kilometres compared with TWA's 462,100,000 and Pan Am's 365,100,000. In terms of market share EA was #3 in 1980 with 12% of the domestic market, TWA was #5 with 6%. At their height in the early 80s Eastern Airlines carried more passengers than any other airline in the free world, and they advertised this. However, in terms of RPK and fleet they still were only #3.

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