Behind the demise of Braniff (which was of course caused by many complex reasons that still have commentators arguing) was a familiar airline screenplay.

Airline led by larger-than-life character embarks on huge and not particularly well thought out growth strategy, new routes, new aircraft, is somewhat undercapitalised, but above all feels that while they are completely entitled to enter other airlines' markets, never envisage that those airlines will come back and compete aggressively against them. Runs out of cash. The end.

Then there is all sorts of whining about how "unfair" the other airlines have been to them. Tough. No one forces you into the aviation game.

Laker Airways was another example of the same culture. Sorry, the supporters of Sir Freddie, it's true.

In Braniff's case the expansion was so underfunded that new aircraft had to be left at Boeing because they could not afford the final payment on delivery. And while they were distracted setting up strange new routes to Asia and Europe, American came in and took over their home turf at Dallas.

Regarding Harding Lawrence and Mary Wells, the original Power Couple, Harding died 2 years ago. Mary is retired in the South of France. This website has much of interest on Braniff personalities :-

http://www.braniffinternational.org/...mary_wells.htm

Hockeystl, PM with any questions. My MBA course had much less interesting case studies, like Babcock & Wilcox building power stations


[This message has been edited by WHBM (edited Dec 11, 2003).]