Originally Posted by
piggy
Go to Wikipedia. Look up the Frank Lorenzo bio. See if this bears any resemblance to the man who ran 2 airlines into the ground and made an attempt on a 3rd (Continental). It's actually humorous reading.
I'm no fan of Frankie's, but the article seemed pretty factual, not skewed toward either a management or labor point of view.
Interesting note on Lorenzo's TWA takeover attempt that drove them into Carl Icahn's hands and it's own eventual bankruptcy and demise -trading one bad choice for another. I read in an article a few years back where Lorenzo said that had he been successful in getting TWA in '85 - he never would have had the desire (or resources) to go after Eastern in '86. He went on to say his next likely pursuit would have been to hook up TWA and Pan Am - or look at more international options and that he would have loved to run the Texas Air empire from TWA's Third Avenue offices. He would have not even really cared about EA.
Alas, it was only after his failed attempt at TWA (which he walked away from with a $51 million profit) that he was then able to turn his attention on getting EA.
Imagine how different the airline landscape might be today had TWA gone to Texas Air... and who knows what would have happened to EA...