CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

On August 9, 1990, Frank Lorenzo announced he was selling his stake in both Continental Airlines and the Texas Air Corporation (by this time renamed Continental Airlines Holdings) to the Scandinavian Airlines System consortium, and leaving the airline business. His dirty work was done at Eastern and there weren’t many tears shed. But there were definitely large numbers who simply said “good riddance” to a mean-spirited, vindictive individual and the mayhem he wrought on a once quiet, gracious industry, dragging it down into the gutter. He subsequently attempted to start up another airline, but the DOT, under President Bill Clinton, banned him for life from the industry.

After serving as ALPA MEC Chairman, in November 1986, Larry Schulte was elected to a four-year term as ALPA National Secretary. In this position, he comfortably sat out most of the Eastern IAM strike that was backed by the Eastern pilots, and the subsequent bankruptcy proceedings, with full pay and benefits paid by ALPA. He was up for re-election in November of 1990, but decided to step down. He then flew for another large airline, with his hand still in some ALPA business while there. No doubt he will be one of the beneficiaries of the various parties’ revisionist history.

I discussed this book with Judith Kelly on a number of occasions, years ago, but felt as though she never really opened up. She did her crying alone, and I can certainly understand and respect that. I also had a gut feeling she might still be attempting to cope. Could you ever really picture yourself in a position where you suddenly lose the person you love and then have to climb a nineteen-thousand-foot mountain just to say your final goodbyes because your government refused to lift a finger? Her trek no doubt did bring some closure and constitute a farewell of sorts. I wish her peace.

Ramon Valdes retired and now resides in western Florida. But one nagging question must have continually surfaced, “Why not me?” On that fateful night, Eastern Flight 980 was supposed to be his flight. Like any other destiny-altering event, the effects are felt forever. Nothing can be the same again.

Since Jerry Loeb was being paid by ALPA National, he toiled to the very end as a member of the Legislative Affairs Committee for the National organization. He remained in that position until Eastern closed its doors, and then returned to his native California where he worked in real estate and later taught children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHA) and Asperger Syndrome. He also published a novel and released two CDs as a symphony violin player, a gifted and talented individual who got a raw deal.

Charlie Bryan remained in his IAM position until 1992, when the president of the larger national IAM unit eliminated District 100 where he was in charge. He subsequently retired and although he was an invited guest speaker at some business seminars held at various universities, he tried to put Eastern and the airline industry completely out of his life. I interviewed him for this book several months before he passed away, and asked how he was affected by Borman’s claims that he was the person responsible for Eastern’s demise. He claimed he wasn’t surprised at all, stating that Borman always looked for a fall guy, and had publicly threatened to “tell the world” that Bryan was to blame. But Bryan was merely an all-too-convenient scapegoat. I got a bit closer to the personal truth when the unpretentious Bryan admitted that he had “spent untold numbers of sleepless nights” trying to fathom the true reason for Eastern’s demise. I never informed Bryan what I had discovered, and asked how he personally felt about Borman. He sighed and declared, “He did what he did for reasons known only to him, and he has to live with the knowledge of the thousands of lives he destroyed, for the rest of his days.”

Charlie Bryan’s actual legacy should be showing what positive results can be achieved when all workers collectively toil toward a singular goal, as demonstrated by Eastern’s economic results in early 1985, and not the bogus smears and venomous vilifications Borman placed at his feet. I only wish that he had lived long enough to read this book.

Skip Copeland was subsequently elected to the top Eastern ALPA MEC Chairman position and toiled for the Eastern pilots in that position until the very end. However, by the time he assumed that role, the airline’s assets had been stripped bare, Eastern a mere shell of what it once was and already doomed. Full-time ALPA work took a steep toll on both his health and marriage. Like the other pilots who remained to the bitter finale, he lost most of his pension. But Copeland is, and always will be, a fighter. So when ALPA’s national leadership ultimately decided not to attempt to enforce the labor protective provisions contained in the Eastern pilot contract that would have entitled the remaining Eastern pilots to transfer to Continental with their seniority intact, he and other Eastern pilots filed a duty of fair representation lawsuit against the union. Sadly, that suit was time-barred by the Federal Court. A few years later, ALPA offered membership back into the ALPA union fold to the Continental pilots that most likely would not have been approved had ALPA protected the Eastern pilots. What that meant was that for the ALPA hierarchy it all boiled down to money, rather than doing what was contractually and ethically correct.

ALPA’s shameful actions were subsequently proven true in another case, when the former Trans World Airline pilots sued ALPA after they were sold out when TWA was taken over by American Airlines. The American pilots are in the different union, the Allied Pilots Association, and ALPA betrayed the TWA pilot members in a futile attempt to get the American pilots back into the ALPA fold. In that case, however, the TWA pilots sued ALPA in a timely manner, and after many years of litigation, won in court. ALPA subsequently settled that case for $53 million. I think it is pretty evident where ALPA’s loyalties lie.

To this very day, Copeland is still owed over a quarter of a million dollars by ALPA for his time as MEC Chairman, and he has never been compensated a single dime.

But even after the whine of the engines is silenced and the smell of kerosene is gone from the clothing, after hanging the uniform in the closet after the final flight, in Copeland’s case, one thing will never change; he will always remain a man of the highest integrity. Sometimes in a situation such as this, some individuals might look back and wonder, Could I have done something differently? In this case there was nothing left, as devious events at the highest levels, first engulfed and then destroyed the airline that touted itself as “The Wings of Man.” No one could have stopped it, and God knows Copeland certainly tried his very best. I will always look up to and respect him for the person he is, what he did and, more impor-tantly, attempted to do.

I finally said a personally painful goodbye to an emaciated Eastern several months after my term of office ended, approximately one year prior to the start of the IAM strike, and over two years after the Lorenzo takeover. Skip Copeland and I had spent two years and a huge amount of energy struggling to put together an employee buyout, but came up short for a variety of reasons. Although I knew it was coming, I nonetheless felt bewildered and saddened witnessing what Texas Air did to the airline. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t see any future for Eastern, particularly after experiencing firsthand the disdain in Texas Air management’s treatment of the Eastern employees, particularly the pilots and IAM workers. Despite the fact that it had been stripped bare and become a mere skeleton of the airline I loved, no one from any federal government branch or agency lifted a finger to stop what was conspicuously taking place.

I originally thought I would be fortunate to be able to fly out the remainder of my career at another large carrier, one that had a reputation of providing for its employees. But fate once again intervened, and that airline also underwent a transformation that Lorenzo would have been proud of, ultimately going through the throes of bankruptcy twice and in due course emerging. But it was never the same there, even before the changes. I had to start all over again at the bottom of the seniority list, which although expected, was tough. More importantly, it was a far different place, with a totally different spirit, and pilots who were far different from the ones I flew with and respected at Eastern. I became just another one of the thousands of former Eastern employees whose lives were forever altered.

The final nail in the financial coffin for the Eastern workers, the pilots in particular, came when it turned out that their defined benefit pension was grossly underfunded, thanks to three funding waivers granted by the IRS during Borman’s years at the helm. It was with this in mind, after Texas Air acquired Eastern, Congress passed legislation which made employee pension liabilities flow through to all the subsidiaries owned by a parent corporation. This meant that the unfunded Eastern pilot pension liabilities, over $700 million, had to be made up by Texas Air’s other airline, Continental. As the MEC Chairman at that time, Copeland had a handshake agreement with Continental’s top management that they would repay this obligation in full. But they instead opted to file for their second Chapter Eleven bankruptcy protection several days later in an attempt to escape that obligation. And the bankruptcy Court let them off the hook. As a result, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) took over administration of the Eastern retirement and the pilots received a mere pittance compared to what they were told they had earned, and were entitled to. The old expression that “shit flows downhill” once again proved true. Not only did many Eastern employees get far less pension money than the amount they were entitled to, but some, the pilots in particular, were also forced to repay money the PBGC had paid to them in the mistaken belief that Continental would be forced to ante up the shortfall. This was made even more painful in light of Borman’s million dollar golden parachute. There were also problems with the other Eastern pilots’ defined contribution plan, known as the “B” plan, as much of it was invested in non-liquid real estate, which also took a large hit right around that time.

Of course, it is much more difficult, indeed impossible, to quantify the silent suffering and anguish of many Eastern workers. In addition to a large number of divorces, there were thousands of dislocated and shattered families, lost homes and a number of suicides. Many suffered total financial ruin and lost all their worldly possessions.

The sordid Eastern story continued to the very end. Its Chapter Eleven bankruptcy proceedings dragged on for well over a year, until on April 18, 1990, Bankruptcy Court Judge, the late Burton Lifland, at long last removed Lorenzo and his henchmen from having any further involvement with the airline. The appointment of Bankruptcy Court Trustee, the late Martin Shrugrue, to run Eastern, gave rise to renewed hope that the internal and external strife might cease, that the airline just might pull itself up from the ashes. But it turned out to be too late; the most valuable assets were gone, with the Eastern carcass plucked clean of those assets by Texas Air, with only a skeleton remaining. Shrugrue was stuck with trying to accomplish the impossible, against insurmountable odds—attempting to undo all the harm that Texas Air had inflicted.

On July 26th, 1990, in what would come as the final curtain call for Eastern, a number of the airline’s top maintenance managers were indicted by a New York Federal Grand Jury for knowingly falsifying aircraft maintenance records. Much of the traveling public is frightened of flying to begin with. Need I say more?

But the Eastern deal was particularly good for Lorenzo’s Texas Air Corporation. During the time they owned and ran Eastern, my calculations show that they siphoned off virtually every valuable Eastern resource. The Air Shuttle, Latin American routes, Miami and LaGuardia terminals were all sold for hard cash, while numerous aircraft with the most favorable financing were shifted to Continental. As previously mentioned, Texas Air also took possession of Eastern’s state of the art reservations system. Taken collectively, these assets totaled over $2.5 billion dollars. It was only through these types of transactions that Continental Airlines was able to survive, meaning the entire scenario played out exactly as Copeland and I had predicted on the day of our ill-fated meeting with Borman.

With Eastern at less than a third its former size, with its darkened Miami headquarters and system-wide terminals more closely resembling ghost towns, and with virtually all of its valuable corporate assets stripped away, the airline’s chances of survival weren’t slim; they were zero. America lost a historic treasure in Eastern Airlines. But the American people also lost much more: the ability to trust those in power who would do whatever it took to ensure that the truth never surfaced.

Eastern Airlines finally closed its doors and passed into history on January 19, 1991, at one minute past midnight.