 “Have
you heard? Eastern Airlines is flying again in 2015, doing charters for
Havana Air Charters?”
A mural of author Ernest “Papa” Hemingway
and Fidel Castro shaking hands appears on a wall at a downtown parking
lot in Havana, Cuba.
Cuba is gathering thousands of photos, books, and letters
to and from Hemingway to be preserved and presented to the public.
Eastern Airlines is back in the air with Havana on the
menu . . .
When pioneering USA flag carrier
Eastern Airlines dropped dead in 1991, after having been part of the landscape
in America from the dawn of commercial aviation and carrying traditions
from Eddie Rickenbacker to Frank Borman, many thought that the last of
it was the demolition of the carrier's old headquarters office tower at
Miami International Airport.
But if there is one certainty in this world it is that
someone will start up another airline.
So while Pan Am, which also disappeared in 1991, was
resurrected in New Hampshire (of all places) but never seems to get much
bigger than a repainted B727, here comes the reborn (sort of), Miami-based
Eastern Airlines as a sub-contract charter carrier with one bright and
shining B737-800.
The new airline says it will have five such aircraft
by the end of 2015, and while that news may quicken the heartbeat of the
“never say die” types, we think you shouldn’t hold your
breath.
The B737, dubbed “Spirit of Eddie Rickenbacker,”
looks for all the world like the old EA, and the welcome afforded the
aircraft late last year when it landed in Miami was sweet.
But that is about all there is—the old look, bolstered
by renewed hope and driven by the unending money of people who want to
bring back an airline that once was and might be again.
It’s good to balance all of this with a current
ad running for Emirates that harkens back to the opulent days of early
jet travel aboard Pan Am.
Emirates’ ad point is that “Today is Tomorrow.”
Well, apparently aboard EK aircraft “Yesterday is Today”!
The truth is that in 2015 the world belongs to American,
Delta, United, Finnair, Lufthansa, Saudia, SWISS, Turkish, and of course
those ever rising Middle Eastern carriers and other airlines around the
world who have somehow navigated the pitfalls of post-deregulation, open
skies, world conflicts, and natural disasters by having smarts, money,
time, and good luck.
 Building
and maintaining a quality product during the past four-plus decades of
constant change and upheaval cannot be described as an easy trick.
Eastern, Pan Am, and TWA are now recalled as “once
upon a time” airlines; smoke dreams that may somehow find a niche
role in today’s world, where it is never over ‘til it’s
over.
Here is an early “Summer Journey” aboard
Youtube with some old airline ads, including a great one-minute dish served
up by Pan Am in 1968 . . .
Happy landings, and “Keep ‘em Flying,”
we say.
Geoffrey |
