Customer Reviews

Freefall: The Needless Destruction of Eastern Air Lines and the Valiant Struggle to Save It

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Robinson's book is without a doubt the worst account of the demise of Eastern Airlines. It's value as history is only matched by Robinson's self-promotion. I suspect all the name-dropping and claims of inventing wonderful ideas that --almost-- saved Eastern are nothing more than an attempt to pave a way for his own corporate future.

This book is clearly worthless, as a history of Eastern, as a study of airline failure, or even as an acceptable account of the events surrounding the end of a great airline. If you are a collector of books about commercial aviation, you might want this one on your shelf (your lowest shelf) just for grins, but if you are thinking reading this book will give you some insight into Eastern Airlines, forget it. You'd be better off reading Bernstein's "Grounded"--only marginally better.

This is the first book I read concerning the destruction of EAL. I first read it while in college then just recently re-read it after purchasing it here. While the book is a good starter for college students (or anyone else) wishing to research EAL, it just lacks many specifics for Eastern's downfall. Robinson uses up a few pages then the final chapter to lament his failed aquisition of Bar Harbor Airlines, a wholly-owned commuter carrier of EAL and Continental. He is also too apologetic of Frank Lorenzo and Texas Air, both of which stripped Eastern of valuable assets such as System One. It seems Robinson is very one-sided, placing most of the blame for EAL's demise on creditors and the IAM. Read this book in conjunction with "Grounded" to get a clearer picture of the events leading up to EAL's bankruptcy and ensuing shutdown.

This book tries to be an "inside account" of the failure of Eastern Airlines. I picked this book off the sale table and thought I would give it a try, mistake number one. The second mistake was working through 200 pages of the thing until I called uncle and gave up, the third and final mistake is that I still have it in my house - I only hope it does not effect the other books sitting close to it. This diatribe which seamed to me to be written in about 5 hours after an all night drinking binge, is undoubtedly some poor excuse to either claim ideas that were not his or maybe to push blame away from himself. Save your self the time and aggravation and pass on this book.