Word: laker
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...days before Freddie Laker and price warfare brought down the cost of air travel across the Atlantic, tiny Icelandic Airlines was the favorite of backpacking students and budget-minded businessmen. Americans going to Europe did not mind if flights often had long layovers at the windswept airport in Reykjavik, Iceland, or if they landed only in backwater Luxembourg. Since Icelandic was not a member of the fare-setting International Air Transport Association, the "hippie airline," as it was nicknamed, hopped the Atlantic for as much as $153 less than major carriers...
...airline's piston-powered DC4s and DC-6Bs were usually packed with Americans doing Europe on $5 a day. Business continued to boom after the line switched to nonstop jet service, which was still at cut rates. In 1977 Icelandic carried 240,000 passengers. But then came Freddie Laker's Skytrain flights and subsequent price slashing by the major airlines. Budget flyers could now skip both Reykjavik and Luxembourg and still save money. After losses of $15 million last year, Icelandair, its official name since 1979, slashed the number of transatlantic flights from 23 to 2 per week...
...since. An estimated 200,000 vacationers from the United Kingdom will have visited Miami Beach on daily flights by year's end, adding some $100 million to the economy of that fabled strip. They are lured to the U.S. by reasonable hotel rates and charter packages and Freddie Laker's Skytrain jet service. Inflation back home and the pound sterling's strong exchange rate against the dollar make Miami a splendid buy. According to the U.S. Travel Service, 1.25 million British tourists will visit the U.S. this year, a 25% increase over 1979. It is the first...
Rookie of the year with the Milwaukee Bucks, he earned the first of his five M.V.P. trophies the next year, leading the Bucks to the N.B.A. title. New Laker Owner Jerry Buss renegotiated his contract at the start of the season (an estimated $1 million annually for four years) and acquired three power forwards, among them Starter Jim Chones, to liberate Kareem from the nightly double-teaming and pounding under the boards that had sapped his energy and enthusiasm in the past...