Word: lorenzo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...similar malaise afflicts some workers at Continental. Employees still resent the way Lorenzo busted the pilots' union during its two-year strike that ended in 1985; the walkout began when he put Continental into bankruptcy proceedings and forced workers to accept 50% pay cuts. Some employees contend that Continental too is sloppy about maintenance. In October, one pilot says, he was told to fly a jetliner with a broken radar device into an area that was being buffeted by thunderstorms. When he refused, supervisors had the balking captain switch planes with another pilot, who agreed to fly the aircraft with...
...Lorenzo dismisses such worries as ridiculous. "Continental is the safest airline in the sky," he asserts. "Nothing has a higher priority." He attributes much of the grousing to propaganda emanating from the Air Line Pilots Association as it tries to reorganize Continental's 3,500 pilots. So far, ALPA claims, 35% of the line's pilots have shown interest in joining up. An election could be held next year...
...were signed by Lorenzo, who critics suggest is responsible for many of Texas Air's woes. Few airline executives elicit as much personal enmity from the troops as he does. And high-level subordinates have not found it easy to deal with the workaholic chairman, who often telephones them late at night with probing questions. Tom Volz, a former Continental senior vice president who now runs Las Vegas-based Sunworld Airways, says Lorenzo is "more interested in new deals than food quality and cleaner planes...
...have to focus on the economy. Some analysts think that Texas Air's enormous $4.5 billion debt would make the company vulnerable in a recession. But Lorenzo notes that Texas Air has $1.2 billion in cash. And, he says, Continental's low costs and fares would make the company more able than most competitors to weather an economic downturn. Says Lorenzo: "We're putting a lot of blood, sweat and tears into a company that has the attributes to be successful." Maybe so, but the fastest way to make customer confidence take off might be to turn a divided work...
...undergraduate days at Columbia in the early 1960s, classmates dubbed Frank Lorenzo "Frankie Smooth Talk." But as chairman of Texas Air in the 1980s, Lorenzo saves his talking for Wall Street and the boardroom, granting few interviews. In a rare 45-minute conversation last week with Richard Woodbury, TIME's Houston bureau chief, the feisty chairman answered his critics. Some excerpts...