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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
United isn't the first great airline to fall on hard times. Does anyone still remember Eastern? Or the glory days of Pan Am?
Dec 10, 2002 | "Rising" was the corporate slogan used by United Airlines in recent years, though I suspect the campaign has been dispatched with. Just as well, as I always found it an irritating tag and missed the old "friendly skies" bit.
But when I think of United, one of the first things that comes to mind is a TV ad the company ran in the mid-1990s, focusing on its newest Latin American destinations. The commercial featured a parrot, which proceeded to peck out George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" on a piano. It was clever, and it reminded me of the erudite stylings and global reach of an airline that, at the time, I so badly wanted to work for. "Rhapsody" remained United's corporate theme music for several years, tinkling along as a dramatic backdrop to its television spots.
On Monday, at its home base in Chicago, United Airlines, which was founded in 1931, became the largest transportation entity ever to file for bankruptcy protection. The news was received by those within the aviation industry with no less mouth-agape incredulity than that of a widebody being commandeered into a skyscraper.
That already happened, of course, and that awful day has become the touchstone for aviation's worst-ever stretch of financial anguish, a 14-month run of unprecedented losses, which in United's case were topping $8 million per day, culminating in the Monday morning announcement of Chapter 11. Most frighteningly, this is perhaps not yet the nadir of the industry's woes, as the other major airlines, albeit with more short-term cash on hand than United, wrestle with comparably dismal numbers. And United's filing comes on the eve of the midwinter lull, traditionally the lowest yield months even in the best of times.
Two of the nation's five largest airlines are now flying in bankruptcy. Already it seems we've forgotten US Airways, which submitted its Chapter 11 paperwork back in August.
Barely half a decade ago, with United's stock reaching more than $100 per share, the airlines were basking, if not gloating, in the largest profits and highest passenger totals in history. The upturn/downturn cycle is nothing new, really, but this time the highs were higher and the lows are much lower, a symptom, one would think, of something desperately awry with the business models our airlines have historically relied upon. Meanwhile, the Southwests and JetBlues persevere -- expanding, hiring, bringing in profits and causing the big boys to fidget even more nervously.
With 80,000 employees (already down from nearly 93,000 in 2001), and 1,800 flights each day (for now), United ranks as the world's second-largest airline, just behind American. While the biggest ever to seek protection from the courts, it nonetheless has plenty of company, from a slew of short-lived upstarts to storied international icons like Swissair and Sabena.
Or consider Eastern, which at its peak in the late 1970s was the planet's largest carrier outside the Soviet Union. Dismantled by the infamous Frank Lorenzo, Eastern also disappeared in the early 1990s. Braniff too, after its 747s had once called port everywhere from Singapore in the East to Frankfurt in the West. TWA, of course, operated in and out of bankruptcy for many years before being absorbed, some token dignity intact, by American last year, while Continental has lived to tell of two separate filings.
But most eerily, one can't help but recall the demise of Pan Am, a company whose blue globe trademark was known the world over with nearly as much brand recognition as Coca-Cola. Pan Am ceased operations forever in December 1991.
