While we’ve told the story of Pan Am and National previously on this blog, Florida had two airlines that competed hard and dominated the aviation landscape of the state from the 1950s until the late 1980s. Those two airlines were Delta, based in Atlanta and Eastern which moved its headquarters from New York to Miami in 1975. Both airlines competed vigorously on routes to/from the Sunshine State and both competed in Atlanta, the largest hub for both airlines, and up the Eastern seaboard. In 1980 Eastern was the largest airline in the western world, eclipsed worldwide only by Soviet state owned carrier Aeroflot. But by 1985, Eastern was only slightly bigger than Delta, a traditional cautious and conservative southern airline that had focused on customer service. Eastern’s reputation for poor customer service and constant labor strife led the airline into decline. By 1989, Eastern had slipped to the seventh largest US Airline (Delta was 3rd by this time) and after a debilitating strike began in March 1989, Eastern sunk into bankruptcy and collapsed in January 1991. Delta on the other hand became the world’s biggest airline after buying Northwest in 2008, jumping over American, Lufthansa, United, Southwest and Air France-KLM into first place. but was passed by United in 2011.
Delta has since 2007 scaled back its Florida operation dramatically thanks to intense low-far competition on it’s bread and butter Florida routes with JetBlue and Southwest. Delta even tried an “Airline within an Airline” concept twice- first in the mid 1990s after Southwest invaded the state with Delta Express an Orlando based leisure carrier that offered one class of service and also had large operations in Fort Lauderdale and Tampa/St Pete. Delta Express copied Southwest service and crew behavior but ultimately flopped. Then Delta tried an outfit called “Song” which mimicked JetBlue and flew the same exact routes JetBlue did from Florida cities. The result was Delta being chased off all routings from Boston to Florida (where the carrier had dominated since the early 1970s), as well as discontinuing most service from first-tier Midwestern cities, Newark, Philadelphia and Washington to Florida. Today, JetBlue is the number one carrier in Fort Lauderdale (where it is building an impressive international operation) and number two in Orlando. Southwest is number one in Orlando and Tampa. Delta which was the largest airline in Orlando from 1987 until 2007, in Fort Lauderdale from 1982 until 2005 and Tampa from 1985 until 2004 is now third or lower in each of those airports.
In December 1985 Delta and Eastern were at virtual parity in Florida. Both airline timetables featured Florida on the front cover. Below is a snapshot of nonstop destinations served by each from its Florida cities.
Daytona Beach
Delta
Atlanta
Eastern
Atlanta
Jacksonville
Fort Lauderdale
Delta
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Chicago – O’Hare
Cincinnati
Dallas/Fort Worth
Detroit
Hartford/Springfield
Miami
Nassau
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
Philadelphia
Tampa/St Pete
Eastern
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Hartford/Springfield
Islip
Miami
Nassau
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
Philadephia
Pittsburgh
Tampa/St Pete
Washington-National
West Palm Beach
Fort Myers
Delta
Atlanta
Eastern
Atlanta
Chicago-O’Hare
New York- Kennedy
Sarasota/Bradenton
Tampa/St Pete
Gainesville
Delta
No service
Eastern
Atlanta
Miami
Jacksonville
Delta
Atlanta
Dallas/Fort Worth
Eastern
Atlanta
Charlotte
Key West
Delta
No service
Eastern
Miami
Melbourne
Delta
Atlanta
Eastern
Atlanta
Miami
New York – LaGuardia
Miami
Delta
Atlanta
Boston
Chicago – O’Hare
Cincinnati
Fort Lauderdale
Memphis
Montreal
Philadelphia
Eastern (Hub operation)
Antigua
Aruba
Atlanta
Baltimore
Barbados
Barranquilla
Bogota
Boston
Buenos Aires
Cali
Charlotte
Chicago-O’Hare
Cleveland
Dallas/Fort Worth
Detroit
Fort Lauderdale
Freeport
Gainesville
Guatemala City
Guayaquil
Hartford/Springfield
Houston-Intercontinental
Jacksonville
Key West
Kingston
London-Gatwick
Los Angeles
Montego Bay
Nassau
New Orleans
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
Panama City, Panama
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Raleigh/Durham
Port Au Prince
St Criox
St Louis
St Maarten
St Thomas
San Francisco
San Jose, Costa Rica
San Juan
Tampa/St Pete
Toronto
Washington-Dulles
Washington-National
West Palm Beach
Orlando
Delta
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Chicago – O’Hare
Cincinnati
Dallas/Fort Worth
Detroit
Hartford/Springfield
New Orleans
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
West Palm Beach
Eastern
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Hartford/Springfield
Houston- Intercontinental
Islip
Miami
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Tallahassee
Tampa/St Pete
Washington-National
West Palm Beach
Pensacola
Delta
Atlanta
Dallas/Fort Worth
Mobile
Eastern
Atlanta
Tampa/St Pete
Sarasota/Bradenton
Delta
Atlanta
Eastern
Atlanta
Chicago-O’Hare
Fort Myers
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
Tallahassee
Delta
Atlanta
Eastern
Atlanta
Orlando
Tampa/St Pete
Tampa/St Pete
Delta
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Chicago – O’Hare
Cincinnati
Dallas/Fort Worth
Detroit
Hartford/Springfield
Memphis
New Orleans
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
Philadelphia
Eastern
Atlanta
Boston
Fort Lauderdale
Fort Myers
Hartford/Springfield
Miami
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
Orlando
Pensacola
Philadelphia
Tallahassee
Sarasota/Bradenton
Washington-National
West Palm Beach
West Palm Beach
Delta
Atlanta
Boston
Chicago – O’Hare
Dallas/Fort Worth
Detroit
Hartford/Springfield
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
Philadelphia
Tampa/St Pete
Eastern
Atlanta
Boston
Hartford/Springfield
Miami
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
Philadephia
Tampa/St Pete
NOTES
While Eastern flew to more destinations from Florida cities, Delta generally had higher frequency flights.
Delta and Eastern both had affiliated commuter service to Fort Walton Beach and Panama City and Delta has affiliated commuter service to Gainesville (A city served by Eastern). Eastern had commuter service to Marathon, Naples and Punta Gorda.
The Florida Squeeze 
You left out the part about how Frank Lorenzo sold off all the profitable parts of Eastern Airlines leaving it a shell of its former self.
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I’ve talked about Lorenzo in previous pieces extensively…we credit him with being the biggst union-buster and job-killer in the history of the state!
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Eastern is an example of a successful be destroyed by management was too busy trying to bust unions. The biggest corporate bankruptcy in Florida’s history. Also the move from New York was the beginning of trying to bust the unions. Florida is a right to work state don’t forget.
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I enjoyed the article but I feel that it is an overly simplistic view of a very complex industry failure. I loved Eastern Airlines and as someone who directly benefited from it’s success it is painful to reflect on what really destroyed it. This was NOT entirely the despicable Frank Lorenzo’s fault but there was a “perfect storm” of other significant factors that led to Eastern’s demise. Eastern had a constantly changing revolving door of incompetent corporate management that amounted to HORRIBLE mismanagement. This was also a period of disastrous government regulatory policies IE:”airline deregulation”, Union greed, and a changing marketplace that had consumers opting for flights on so called “discount airlines” that still continues today. Unfortunately Eastern was only one of many airline failures during this turbulent period notable examples include Pan Am, TWA, National, and Braniff. Over forty years later the airline industry continues to struggle towards maintaining profitability.
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Frank Lorenzo got a bad wrap…union problems and Eastern’s trouble began long before him. The network was too based around seasonal travel and the northeast corridor.
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Lorenzo wasn’t to blame. The Unions were unreasonable. I tend to be pro-Labor but in Eastern’s case, Labor was making money hand over fist and management was being exploited. The airline was losing money and yet the unions wouldn’t take a pay cut or share the sacrifice. The end result was the largest collapse of a company based in this state.
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