Word: forte
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Senate, however, different political factors were at play. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee is Republican John Tower of Texas; the F-16 Fighting Falcon is made in Fort Worth by General Dynamics Corp. Tower's committee cut all funds for the rival A10. The Pentagon, which still insists it does not need more A-10s, last week readily accepted the Senate cut. But Addabbo predicts that some of the planes will be restored when the House and Senate work out a final version. Says he: "In conference, I expect a compromise will be made...
With a cool precision not always seen on its flights, Braniff in a matter of hours called in its 75 aircraft, canceled all flights, fired nearly 9,000 employees and threw a police guard around its lavish $70 million headquarters building at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Flight 501 was on its way toward Hawaii when it made an unscheduled stop in Santa Barbara, Calif., apparently to decide whether the plane should return to Dallas. The choice to continue was made. Captain Bob Gilchrist, the pilot of what possibly was history's final Braniff flight, 902 from Buenos Aires...
Braniff's end in Dallas came, fittingly, in a driving thunderstorm that had already delayed some takeoffs. Bill Rafter, a salesman from Fort Wayne, Ind., was on the last Braniff flight from Dallas to Kansas City. Said he: "We had waited four hours because of the weather delays, and then we find out that the airline is shutting down." One Dallas couple, Pete and Mary Ann Moxon, had built up enough promotional points by flying Braniff at odd hours to earn a nearly free trip to London. Now, with baby-sitting grandparents already in town from Delaware to free...
...those attempts failed, and so Braniff executives put into effect a plan that called for getting the airline's planes back to a few domestic airports, including Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami, so that they could not be easily seized by the company's creditors. On Wednesday the Braniff board of directors took the final decision to file for bankruptcy. At 5 p.m. employees were told unofficially to clean out their desks and not to come to work the next day, which was payday...
Just before midnight Putnam and Lawyer Michael Crames went to the home of Judge John Flowers in Fort Worth. The judge had been in bed, but he got up, donned an L.L. Bean shirt and gray slacks and ushered the Braniff executives into his living room. Flowers signed three bankruptcy petitions in all-for Braniff International, Braniff Airways and Braniff Realty-and was paid $600 on the spot for his services. Said Braniff's boss later as he fought back tears, his voice cracking: "What we had to do was very difficult, and I'm sorry...