Eastern Airlines once flew high over Miami. Then came the day it was grounded forever

You can still sort of see the dark blue/light blue remnants of their logo on some of the Park and Fly places in ATL and FLL and a few other places...

i lived through the frank borman/charlie briant kamakazi "lets destroy an airline" show in the late 80's. At the time i wondered what would be left after these two scorpions in a bottle finished their dance. The answer- nothing, thousands of jobs gone for no good reason.
eastern was Miami's good home, town airline, gone along with National and Pan Am. I flew on them all and each died badly.

I was in SJO awaiting an EAL flight to MIA. The agents apologized - sent us over to PanAm, closed the gates and went to bar

I was on an Eastern flight from KLGA to KDCA on the last day of the airline’s existence. A mostly empty plane, with the FAs trying to put on a good face given their uncertain personal futures. Though the days of turbulence were ending for Eastern, it was a smooth ride down to DC.

I remember being on an Eastern flight ATL-Tallahassee in 1976, diverting to Gainesville after holding for an hour due to T-storms. A passenger stood up and started yelling at the FA because we were diverting. She hit him with a rolled up in-flight magazine and told him to sit down and shut up. He did. Another great moment in aviation history...

Back in 1985 I was a res agent working in a call center in Salt Lake City. At the time we thought we had the ultimate in high tech equipment. I also remember we were "encouraged" to up sell rental cars, hotels, tours, etc. etc. on every reservation call we received. Each month a list was posted showing who was doing well, and who was not. If your name was near the bottom you didn't hang around for long. But I did meet some great people there and most were really loyal to Eastern. It is a shame they were so mismanaged.

Anyone nostalgic? I have a box of original ticket jackets from Eastern, Pam Am, TWA, Midway and Continental. $1.50 each if anyone is interested. Reply to this post.

When I was with NWA we hired an ex-Eastern agent. He freely admitted they hated Lorenzo so much they were all willing for EA to go under. All the agents from most airlines despised Lorenzo as well, rumor was he had bodyguards with him on the ramp. Smart move.

December 1970, I had a paper route with a Seattle newspaper; they and Eastern had a contest for us kids and I won a 'sunrise sightseer' flight from SEA -> SEA in a 727-100. They took us above the rain and fed us breakfast as we watched the sunrise. Eastern was a favorite from then on.

I flew for EAL 23 years, left before the strike , what a shame a real leader in many ways- totally
looted by lorenzo

Not sure about "once flew high over Miami" I recall one EA flight that descended in to the Everglades, an L1011 Tristar if I recall correctly. Not sure of the year.