Grounded: Frank Lorenzo and the Destruction of Eastern Airlines

by Aaron Bernstein and Peter Bernstein

Book Overview

The inside account of how Frank Lorenzo took over a sputtering Airlines and flew it into the ground. 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".

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671740369
• ISBN13: 9780671740368
• Release Date: August 1991
• Publisher: Touchstone Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Excellent

Excellent book, well researched and very well written. Accurately portrays the events that lead to Eastern's demise. I am no fan of unions. But, Lorenzo displayed a blatant calloused disregard for Eastern, it's people, and everything connected with it.

Bewildering and Suspenseful

I read the original publication in the early 90's. This book reads well and keeps you on the edge of your seat. The story is bewildering and illustrates a classic "old world" perspective of labor/management relations clashing with the modern realities of a deregulated airline market that would no longer tolerate labor friction.

Brian Wayne Wells, Esquire, reviews "Grounded"

This is a short book but a good telling of the tale of the downfall of Eastern Airlines under the managment of Frank Lorenzo. It is also a story that relates a great deal about the corporate attitudes of the late 1980s and the potential consequences of that attitude. The only shortcoming of the book is that the story line leaves off with the ejecetion of Frank Lorenzo as the debor in possession of the bankrupt airline and the appointment of a bankrupcy trustee in April of 1990. The airline did continue operation until sometime later in 1990 when the company was finally liquidated. The story stopped too soon.