Given that increased competition generally results in a greatersupply of cheap traveloptions, such as cheapairplane tickets, newsthat Eastern Air Lines could be flying from U.S. airports as soon as March isbeing greeted by many as good news.
Eastern is expected to start slow and take its time beforemoving into regularly scheduled service alongside competitors such as American,JetBlue, and Spirit.
The re-launched Eastern initially will only provide charterflights, hoping eventually to move into regularly scheduled commercialpassenger service. The airline ispositioning itself somewhere between the ultra-low cost airline niche (whichconsists of airlines like Spirit and Frontier) and traditional legacy airlinessuch as American, Delta, and United.
Eastern Air Lines future remains very much up in the air atthis point. For every airline, such asJetBlue who has been very successful since it began flying after deregulationin the 1970s, there are dozens of new airlines that have been launched only tolater shut down. Many new startupairlines do not even make it through a full year of flying.
PEOPLExpress is an example of a recently failed airline thatattempted to revive a historically popular aviation brand. This airline commenced flying in June of lastyear only to abruptly halt flights in September. Attempts to resume flights have to date beenunsuccessful.
Eastern has successfully raised some start-up cash, but hasannounced it wants to raise at least $50 million more before launching noncharter passenger flights.
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