At Miami Hub, the Lines Went On Forever . . .

Excuse me, some new arrival would ask hesitantly, is this the line for Eastern? Then would come the god-awful, heart-stomping news that, oh dear, you bet, this was indeed the line.

There have been freight trains shorter and caterpillars faster. It reached past the newsstands and the gift shops, then curled like a conga dance around the information booth, where a sign in red lights--”Miami Welcomes You”--taunted people, many of them just off cruise ships and expecting to fly home.

Beyond it was another line just as long as this one, and then another and another. Where they stopped nobody really knew. And what good did it do to stand in them? Often no good at all.

Saturday was the very worst of airport nightmares at Miami International, where a third of all flights--usually 106 a day--are on Eastern Airlines, the carrier whose machinists have gone on strike.

Normally, weekends are wild here. The giant cruise ships return to the Port of Miami from the Caribbean, discharging thousands of happy seafarers but a flight away from Jersey or Philly or Akron.

But this was more than hectic. This was turmoil. People had tickets to ride. But ride what? Wait in line, they were told.

Many from the ocean liners had never even known that strike talk was in the air. When their voyage ended, with no warning, they were aboard a bus to aggravation. “Take me to Eastern,” Al Zehe of Cleveland requested.

Strike News Travels

“Eastern’s on strike,” the driver said.

“No they’re not.”

“Yes, they are.”

In fact, many drivers, in sympathy with pickets, would not even drop off travelers near the Eastern counters. Tourists had to carry their own luggage from drop-off points at other terminals.

People did not know exactly where to go. TV monitors listed the departures, but beside most flight numbers were only these words: Ask Agent. How did one find an agent? By standing in a line.

But which was the right line? Few of the Eastern personnel meandering about with walkie-talkies had an answer.

Jeffrey Block, a New York lawyer fresh off a cruise, craftily rebooked his return flight on Braniff for $171. But would Eastern reimburse him? He waited in a line three hours.

Waiting to Wait

“Can you tell me what the refund policy is?” he asked an Eastern agent.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Where . . . please . . . where would I go to find a person who knows?”

“You need to wait in a different line.”

“But which line?”

“I don’t know.”

Some agents were good at helping the hapless, but others were as lost as the tourists. “A lot of the trained people are outside doing other jobs,” confessed veteran ticket agent Terese Boetner.

Harriet Linton of Syracuse waited in line two hours. Finally, an agent transferred her ticket to a Piedmont flight and sent her to their counter.

She waited another 45 minutes. “You need an F. I. M.,” the Piedmont agent told her. An F. I. M.? Yes, a “flight interruption manifest.”

Where could she get one?

Back at Eastern. After waiting in line.

Hours-Long Delays

Eventually--though hours and hours late--most of the would-be passengers got to fly. Some even escaped aboard the half-dozen or so Eastern flights that actually took off.

Others boarded Eastern planes only to sit idly at the gate. Sometimes hours went by. Then came word: Sorry, no pilot.

People were told to disembark. New arrangements would be made for them in the ticket lobby. Just wait in line.

“This is the most screwed up thing ever!” complained Gene Lonchar of Valley Forge, Pa., pouting next to his luggage.

There were vast prairies of suitcases. People sat on them or laid them flat and napped on them. Seldom was heard an encouraging word.

Eastern machinists, picketing outside on the sidewalk, sometimes peeked in to see what their strike had wrought.

Pickets Take a Peek

“You hate to inconvenience people,” said James McCreary, 22 years with the company. “A lot of them are nice. They tell us to hang in there.”

This may only be the beginning. More cruise ships are due in today.

“We’re trying to rearrange plane reservations, incoming and outgoing,” said Rich Steck, spokesman for Royal Caribbean, one of the biggest lines.

But for years Eastern has been the favored carrier. It dominates the Miami market.

“What is this?” said Sam Miller of New York. His cruise was over. The bus had left him at the airport. He saw all the people.

He had a question and suspected he would not like the answer.

He asked: “Is this the line for Eastern?”