Eastern and Continental airlines have announced plans...

Eastern and Continental airlines have announced plans to return to separate sales forces, which the sister carriers called a move to improve efficiency. Union officials, however, speculated that the move might indicate that Eastern is being readied for sale or that parent Texas Air Corp. may be trying to keep the two airlines from being declared one carrier for labor representation purposes. Texas Air had said that Eastern-Continental Sales allowed sales representatives to visit travel agents and promote charters, group packages and special fares jointly. But the merged sales didn’t work out as planned. The sales team will be split in half, with Eastern workers based in Miami and Continental’s in Houston.