Eastern Air Lines

Cause of death

Killed by cost

with killed by merger as a contributing factor

A bitter strike and an owner selling off the profitable routes drained it past recovery.

Eastern once ran the busiest air route in the country and was, under Eddie Rickenbacker, among the most profitable airlines in the world. Its final decade was a war between management and its unions that culminated in a 1989 strike the airline never recovered from, while its most valuable routes and aircraft were sold to service debt. It stopped flying in January 1991, eleven months before Pan Am did the same.