Customer Reviews

Grounded: Frank Lorenzo and the Destruction of Eastern Airlines

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Excellent book, well researched and very well written. Accurately portrays the events that lead to Eastern's demise. I am no fan of unions. But, Lorenzo displayed a blatant calloused disregard for Eastern, it's people, and everything connected with it.

This is a short book but a good telling of the tale of the downfall of Eastern Airlines under the managment of Frank Lorenzo. It is also a story that relates a great deal about the corporate attitudes of the late 1980s and the potential consequences of that attitude.

The only shortcoming of the book is that the story line leaves off with the ejecetion of Frank Lorenzo as the debor in possession of the bankrupt airline and the appointment of a bankrupcy trustee in April of 1990. The airline did continue operation until sometime later in 1990 when the company was finally liquidated. The story stopped too soon.

While I lived in Dallas, I read Bernstein's book around the same time time that filmmaker Oliver Stone was in town filming the movie "J.F.K.". I submitted Bernstein's book along with a detailed proposal that included optioning the book rights for a movie with actors Daniel J. Travanti as Lorenzo, Brian Dennehy as Charles Brian and Michael Douglas as Trustee Marty Shugrue. Stone responded 5 days later to me through his assistant Kristina Hare that while this was a meaty subject, the political bent of the book ran counter to his convictions. I found this response puzzling. The book details how Lorenzo, a brilliant financial manipulator, rose from Queens, New York to the heights of owning the world's largest commercial airline empire second only to Russia's Aeroflot. This book is clearly a portrayal of how Lorenzo's get tough tactics with Eastern's notoriously militant IAM led by Charles Bryan from 1980 forward led to a war with Texas Air Management. Lorenzo ended up dismantling the very asset he bought by striking blows against labor in a bitter showdown. Eastern under CEO Frank Borman had 43,000 employees. By the time the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York ousted Lorenzo as "incompetent to reorganize Eastern's estate", only 18,500 employees remained and over $700 million of assets were either sold or dubiously transferred at little or no cost to Texas Air's Continental Airlines. So, Oliver Stone's rationale is quite strange. He is pro-union and this book details how Lorenzo started an unnecessary war with Eastern's unions rather than allow a professional manager to run the airline. Bernstein had unprecedented access to Frank Lorenzo and former managers of Texas Air as he delivers a step by step cautionary tale of how a well educated albeit, a brutal minded executive became his own worst enemy. It is a well paced and well written book that should become required reading for any business school management class.

This is a study in an ego taken over. I view is that the games he played could almost be criminal. I would have liked more information for the company as the author does seem to set out to make Frank be the bad guy. I would also have liked more details on the business end of the airline industry. I thought the writing was above average, he moved the story along through some topics that could be considered dull, union negotiations etc. All and all not a bad book and if you find the airline industry interesting then you should read this book.

I read the original publication in the early 90's. This book reads well and keeps you on the edge of your seat. The story is bewildering and illustrates a classic "old world" perspective of labor/management relations clashing with the modern realities of a deregulated airline market that would no longer tolerate labor friction.

Great read for someone as myself, an Eastern Airlines Pilot having lived through that era. Bernstein did an excellent job. I knew some of the events, Bernstein did clear up that fateful night when the Board of Directors, who should be taken to this day out and hung, gave EAL to Frank Lorenzo. Lorenzo was a thief in the highest order, and to have been there and watch him rape the airline we loved is more than most of us could bear. The so-called trustee, Martin R. Shugrue who's ego spent even more of the creditor's money (ours), I recall a PanAm buddy who allowed me to stay in his crash pad in NY, saying, my roommate is Marty Shugrue, watch out for Shugrue! Was my buddy correct! All I can say, if you have any interest in the history of the demise of the once great Eastern Airline, then by all means, read this book. I recall, as a young Naval Aviator, joining EAL. The magazines were leather bound, we ate from Rosenthal China, drank the finest scotch. Although, I walked out March 03, 1989, Eastern went from the third largest carrier destroyed in a bit over two short years by Lorenzo, ending up managed by a guy I had roomed with in Valley Stream LI. When Lorenzo was finally kicked out, it was hopeless for Eastern. Working for McDonnell Douglas, my manager at MDC said how would you like to be the first to repossess one of our DC-9's? I flew into Atlanta, strolled out to the aircraft I was to fly to Palmdale. Looking over the aircraft, EAL's gates, saw the poor shape everything was in, thinking, these poor devils, they had zero chance of survival.

Overall this book gives an sufficent explantian on the events that led up to Eastern's Shutdown. However, it is bias toward the unions without exposing there arrogance. If you ignore this fact and simply rely on the facts given this is a fairly good book. And also, it ends before the shutdown of the company in January 1991. It does not show the final stage of the Eastern Airlines saga between where Frank Lorenzo loses power and the company shutsdown. 3 stars.

Good account of the battle over Eastern Airlines. Labor vs. management at its worst. How personalities killed a once great airline

One of the most unfair treatments of the demise of Eastern Airlines ever written and the second worst book on the subject. Biased towards labor from the beginning, Bernstein paints Goya-like pictures of an evil Frank Lorenzo and his henchmen cackling over a cauldron late at night, thinking up ways to lie, cheat and steal Eastern away from the hearths of America. At the same time, Charlie Bryan is portrayed as some mythic hero who ". . .read Ghandi and Kahlil Gibran and even Sun-tzu. . .". Right. Bias shows in the fact that no Texas Air management are quoted; no personal attributes are ever given, making Lorenzo, Bakes et all appear as soulless corporate thugs, while the stalwart union defenders with defiant chins thrust forth, are given warm wonderful hearts and the purest of intentions. I'm surprised Bernstein didn't have pictures of Bryan petting a puppy and holding a baby. Of slight redeming value is the fact that the book does tell an accurate story. Eastern didn't have to die and maybe Lorenzo didn't have to kill it, but the interpretation and presentation are designed only to support an intransigent group of labor leaders in their refusal to see the reality of the world. This book is only marginally better than the worst book written about Eastern, "Freefall".