People's Express obviously expanded too fast, contributing to their demise. Their legacy lived on however, with Continental's hub in Newark.
Apparently during the last year or so, the whole operation was pretty chaotic. They didn't have much of a corporate "organization" per se, as it flew in the face of their employee empowerment culture. So this led to numerous oversights.
In fact, just before the inaugural flight of the "Great Pumpkin" to Gatwick, it occured to managment that they didn't have a crew to fly it. They tried buying a qualified crew, but their salaries were too low and management wasn't about to cause internal strife by bringing on higher paid pilots. So they scrambled, and qualified a 727 crew in a 747 simulator (apparently you can be equipment certified this way).
Thus, the first PEX 1/2 Boeing 747--the legendary Braniff "Great Pumpkin"--flew fully loaded to Gatwick piloted by a crew who had never flown a 747 before.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by BearX220:
[B]I flew EWR-LGW and back on People Express' one lone 747 in 1982 or '83. The kids who served as cabin crew were so proud of that airplane; they'd acquired it from Braniff, where it had been one of the "great pumpkin" planes that flew DFW-HNL. The fare to London on PE was $149 each way and backpackers used to camp for days at EWR's rat-infested North Terminal, waiting for standby seats.
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