Bubbly Inaugural : Trump Flies 1st Shuttle With Flair

From the Mozart-playing string quartet at LaGuardia Airport to the miniature bottles of champagne handed out in flight, Donald Trump didn’t spare the glitter in launching his new Northeast shuttle airline today.

The New York-to-Washington flight of the Trump Shuttle was one of the inaugural flights for the service that Trump acquired from strikebound Eastern Airlines.

Trump wasn’t able to meet his advertised claim for getting the flights off on time--the scheduled 8 a.m. flight from LaGuardia to Washington took off at about 8:17 a.m., while another flight from Washington to New York was delayed by weather and heavy traffic--but he did live up to his reputation for hoopla.

At LaGuardia, a string quartet played Mozart near a buffet crammed with mimosas and muffins. During the flight, which was packed with reporters and regular travelers, attendants dressed in new navy-and-burgundy uniforms handed out miniature bottles of champagne.

“The name ‘Trump’ carries a lot of weight,” said flight attendant Denise McCain, 33, an 11-year Eastern veteran. “We’re all very excited about it.”

At one point the billionaire businessman, who sat in the front row with Trump Shuttle President Bruce Nobles, grabbed the public address microphone to announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your flight attendant.”

Passengers arriving at Washington’s National Airport were met by a strings and accordion quintet, whose statuesque blonde violin player mugged with Trump for photographers.

The shuttle’s rebirth had been trumpeted for days by newspaper and radio ads, touting Trump’s plans to rejuvenate the business that had been Eastern’s only profitable enterprise before the company was crippled by a strike that began March 4.

Trump formally closed the deal in a signing ceremony at his opulent Plaza Hotel, buying the shuttle from strikebound Eastern Airlines for $365 million.

The real estate and casino tycoon, with trademark bravado, pledged to make the Trump Shuttle “the best transportation system in the world.”