The inside account of how Frank Lorenzo took over a sputtering Airlines and flew it into the ground.
tense, event-by-event account of the crash of Eastern Airlines in the late 1980s, as suspenseful as an air-disaster movie, Business Week reporter Bernstein presents Lorenzo as an obsessed anti-unionist. The Texas-based aviation empire he founded was crowned by the takeover of ailing Eastern Airlines, and his treatment of employees led to bitter, prolonged strikes and lawsuits that threatened to cripple national transportation. Union efforts on the employees' behalf to secure a purchaser for the near-bankrupt airline were thwarted by Lorenzo, who, in accordance with a 1990 court order, was removed from management in favor of a trustee, an order that the author considers a watershed in the labor policy of the Republican era.With access to the major players -- the guarded Lorenzo and his inner circle, former Eastern Airlines president Frank Borman, Peter Ueberroth, and union boss Charlie Bryan -- author Aaron Bernstein explains how Lorenzo brought a corporate raider's mentality to running a business, and how its failure marked a watershed in the 1980s "Age of Greed”.

Frank was the king of all aviation. Love him or hate him, you gotta give props to the balls on this guy. As much of a hard ass as Crandall, as smart as Burr, bigger than Tripp. ( )