Eastern Unveils Fare Cuts, Increase in Flight Schedule

Eastern Airlines, trying to rebuild from a crippling strike and financial woes, on Tuesday expanded its schedule and cut its already discounted fares while adding the lure of refundable tickets.

A union leader, meanwhile, said the new fare cuts for fall travel by Eastern’s healthier competitors would badly hurt Eastern’s efforts to rebuild without its unions.

The discounts of up to $160 on a round-trip fare were announced Sunday by Trans World Airways and matched over the next two days by carriers including Eastern, Delta Air Lines, Pan American World Airways, United Airlines, American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines and USAir Group.

George Brennan, Eastern’s vice president for marketing, said Eastern had already planned new discounts before the other carriers and added that Eastern’s fall promotion offers tickets that “are much easier to use and a much better value in most cases.”

Besides competitive rates, Brennan said, Eastern’s discounted fares, beginning Sept. 7, have fewer restrictions and unlike the other carriers, allow full refunds on unused tickets.

Eastern will require only three- to seven-days’ advance purchase, and its low fares are available nearly every day and carry no restrictive penalties. The fares will affect all domestic markets.

On Tuesday, the carrier increased its daily flights to 390 by adding 40 flights connecting Atlanta and destinations mostly in the South and said it would fly 600 daily flights starting Sept. 7. Eastern’s rebuilding plan proposed to its creditors calls for 800 daily flights by year-end and an airline about two-thirds its pre-strike size.

While Eastern says it has hired enough new pilots and is keeping up with maintenance despite its strike, it has been leasing five planes and crews from sister carrier Continental Airlines. Brennan said more planes and crews will be leased from Continental, owned by Texas Air Corp. as is Eastern, to meet the September expansion but that the practice is only temporary.

Eastern union leaders say the airline’s claims to be coming back are misleading because their fares, as low as $39 one way, make it impossible to make money.

“The more they fly, the more they lose,” Machinists District 100 President Charles Bryan told a rally in Miami on Saturday.

Matell said Eastern’s priority is winning back customers and that it is pleased at 75% load figures as it tries to emerge from bankruptcy reorganization.