AIRLINES : Jubilant Real Estate Magnate Will Rename, Paint Eastern’s Line : Trump Ready to Take Over Shuttle

Donald J. Trump is not known for his modesty. He names a lot of things after himself.

There are the Trump Plaza & Casino and the Trump Castle & Casino in Atlantic City, N.J.; the 68-story Trump Tower office and apartment building, the Trump Plaza cooperative and Trump Parc condominiums in Manhattan; the Trump Plaza condominiums in Palm Beach, Fla., and his 282-foot Trump Princess, the world’s largest private yacht.

Now he’s got an airline bearing his name.

Will Paint Airliners

“I put my name on something when I really feel that it is going to be right,” he said at a news conference at New York’s swank Plaza Hotel--which he acquired a year ago but has not named for himself, presumably because there are already too many Trump Plazas.

Trump did not try to hide his jubilation as he talked to reporters Thursday hours after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton R. Lifland signed the order allowing Eastern Airlines to sell its Northeast shuttle to Trump.

The New York hotel owner and real estate developer said the Trump Shuttle’s 21 airliners will be painted white with black, red and gold stripes. Trump’s name will be painted on each side of the planes; on the tail there will be a giant T. He said he will take over the shuttle from Eastern in about two weeks.

“This gives me as much pleasure as buying the Plaza Hotel,” he said. “This is something that from day one I have said I want to have my name on.”

Trump even boasted that his name is what finally won him the shuttle in the contest he had been having over it in bankruptcy court with America West Airlines. Phoenix-based America West offered more for the shuttle than Trump’s $365 million but could not come up with the financing to support the bid.

“I saw one report that said that the biggest disadvantage America West had was that it did not have the Trump name,” he said.

The bankruptcy court, which has been in charge of Eastern’s affairs since it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy March 9, must approve the sale of any of the carrier’s assets.

Trump and Bruce Nobles, a man who began his airline career with American Airlines 23 years ago as a reservations clerk and is now president of the Trump Shuttle, declined to say what specific changes would be made in the shuttle service, which links New York with Boston and Washington.

They would not say if fares will be cut in an effort to win back some of the passengers lost to the Pan Am Shuttle in the last three months. The two shuttles each had about half of the traffic before Eastern’s machinists went on strike March 4. Since then, Eastern’s share has slipped to 23%.

The Trump Shuttle will employ about 1,000 people, of whom 800 will be former Eastern workers.

Planes Are Safe

Trump and Nobles did say that the planes--all aging Boeing 727s--will be refurbished during the next year and that some new planes will ultimately be acquired.

But the shuttle’s present planes are safe, Trump said. Because of Eastern’s recent troubles, he added, the airliners have been more closely inspected than those of any other carrier.

Nevertheless, he said, “We are going to go over them totally, impeccably carefully. We will X-ray every part, every inch. They are not only going to be the safest planes in the air, they are going to be magnificent to look at.”