An On-Again, Off-Again Story : Union Now Denies Pilot Barred Lorenzo

The Air Line Pilots Assn. today retracted its earlier story that a Delta Air Lines captain balked at carrying passenger Frank Lorenzo, boss of strike-crippled Eastern Airlines, on a Tuesday night flight.

Capt. Jim Gray, head of ALPA’s Delta division, denied remarks by another pilots union official, John Knudson, who had said a Delta pilot refused to fly upon learning Lorenzo was aboard his Salt Lake City-New York flight. Knudson said another pilot had to fly the plane.

Gray said the Delta crew was initially concerned about flying Lorenzo but there was no incident as claimed by Knudson.

“The flight operated absolutely normally, with the captain who was assigned to the flight taking the flight,” Gray said. “It was an uneventful flight.”

“It is typical and required on all Delta flights . . . to provide a security briefing to the crew in advance of the flight of any personalities on board--they might be celebrities, bomb threats, from A to Z, anything that would be any operation abnormality,” Gray said. “And in this case, Frank Lorenzo had a ticket on the flight and the captain was not advised of it. The crew was very uneasy about that.”

But Gray said the captain, whom he did not identify, was satisfied that security was adequate and the flight operated normally to New York.

“Mr. Lorenzo got off the flight, thanked the captain for a very nice ride. The captain said thank you very much. And Mr. Lorenzo was not aware that there was any kind of problem.”

John Mazor, a spokesman for the parent union in Washington, said Knudson had based his account on “sketchy and incomplete information.”

Aides to Lorenzo and Delta also denied Knudson’s account.