Problems Cited as 2 Eastern Air Executives Quit

Two top executives at Eastern Airlines resigned in the midst of a management shake-up undertaken to curb an increasing number of complaints about canceled flights and faulty equipment, company officials said Tuesday.

Eastern acknowledged that it canceled an unusually high number of flights in July and said that almost 40% of the flights that did take off were more than 15 minutes late.

Eastern President Joseph B. Leonard named Philip C. Bohan to replace Terry Riemer as vice president of line maintenance and D. Roger Ferguson to replace Kevin Cooper as vice president of maintenance planning and engineering.

“We’re placing two of our most seasoned and knowledgeable managers in key roles where they can be effective in turning our performance around,” Leonard said. “We’re getting on with fixing the problem rather than making excuses.”

Riemer and Cooper quit their positions at the airline’s main maintenance facility in Miami on Monday, Eastern spokesman Jerry Cosely said.

The airline has linked its poor performance record to its accepted $676-million buyout by Texas Air Corp. earlier this year, and Cosley said the sale was not likely to provide quick relief to Eastern’s problems.

Cosley attributed the problems to a shortage of planes caused by maintenance backlogs. According to company figures, Eastern canceled 39 of its 1,500 flights while 570 flights arrived more than 15 minutes late on a typical day in July.