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, and subsequently passed by American and Southwest based on whatever metric you prefer (I like to view the current “Big Four” US Airlines as roughly all the same size).
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, Spirit 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. Delta which was the largest airline in Orlando from 1987 until 2007, is now number five at that airport. In Fort Lauderdale Delta was number one from 1982 until 2007 but is now number four and in Tampa from 1985 until 2004 where they are now fourth.
In December 1985 Delta and Eastern were at virtual parity in Florida. Eastern had in 1970 carried more passengers to and from Florida than all other airlines combined. But by 1975 National Airlines and Delta had cut significantly into this and after airline deregulation in 1978, Eastern more than any other large carrier began to face all sorts of low-fare competition in its key markets of Florida and the Northeast.
1985 is also key, because it is the year Delta, Atlanta’s hometown airline finally overtook then Miami-based Eastern for number one at Atlanta. In 1980, Eastern had offered more flights to more destinations from Atlanta than any single airline offered from any city in the world. Deregulation changed this.
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
Memphis
Miami
Nassau
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
Philadelphia
Tampa/St Pete
Eastern
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Cleveland
Hartford/Springfield
Houston-Intercontinental
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
Fort Lauderdale
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
Cleveland
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
Cleveland
Columbus
Fort Lauderdale
Fort Myers
Hartford/Springfield
Houston-Intercontinental
Miami
Newark
New York – LaGuardia
New York – Kennedy
Orlando
Pensacola
Philadelphia
Tallahassee
Sarasota/Bradenton
Syracuse
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 
It’s been interesting (and occasionally frustrating) to watch Delta revamp its network. Sometimes it’s big changes, and sometimes they’re just baby steps, but I came over from NW, and even since then it’s evolved quite a bit.
Not for nothing, DL now has mainline flights at GNV, VPS, and ECP.
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Agreed!
Just wait until we do the post on Delta Express and compare how the network from Orlando and Fort Lauderdale in the late 90s was completely different than the mid-80s. Outside of New York and the hubs almost a completely different set of cities. Then in 2005 Post we have coming this month Delta’s network from those two cities and Tampa were completely different than in the late 90s with a focus on connecting to smaller southern cities like Greensboro, Knoxville and Louisville.
It’s frustrating that Delta has never kept the same strategy, but at the same time what a great airline to have evolved and pivoted at the right time for so long. This having been said I think the one huge strategic error Delta made was abandoning Boston in the late 2000s. They were always going to have to go back in there to keep business account and rebuild it as they have now in the last few years.
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I’m looking forward to it. And agreed 👍 n BOS. Crude analogy, but it feels like we sold low and are now buying high.
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