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...Sir Freddie Laker, the British businessman whose Laker Airways went bankrupt two weeks ago as a victim of the cut-rate fares it once pioneered, is not alone. U.S. airlines also have big problems stemming in part from a suicidal fare war that has been raging for months...
Meanwhile in London, Sir Freddie was down last week but certainly not yet out. A loyal British public had rallied behind him and donated some ?3 million ($5.5 million) to a Freddie Friendly Fund to help him launch another carrier. Laker and Roland ("Tiny") Rowland, managing director of Lonrho Ltd. and one of Britain's most talked-about businessmen, were considering joining forces in a new flying venture that could be airborne by April. -By John S. DeMott. Reported by Christopher Ogden/Chicago and Bruce van Voorst/New York
...board a DC-10 bound for Miami from Manchester, England, were stunned to hear over a loudspeaker that their flight had been canceled. An Airbus A300, already airborne toward Tenerife, reversed course and flew back to Manchester. At London's Gatwick Airport, stewardesses and ticket agents openly wept. Sir Freddie Laker, the swashbuckling British entrepreneur who had revolutionized transatlantic travel by slashing air fares, had abruptly announced that he was liquidating his debt-laden airline. Said one Laker counter attendant: "It's hit everyone, mate-like a smack in the mouth...
...Sir Freddie, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in June 1978, tried in vain to get help. Last Sir Freddie Thursday he phoned Iain Sproat, Britain's Under-Secretary for Trade, to warn that without government aid, his airline would crash. Later that day Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher discussed Laker's plight with several Cabinet members, but chose not to bail out the carrier. Early next morning, at a tense meeting with his board of directors at Gatwick, Laker called it quits...
Laker thus becomes the first victim of the airfare wars that he originally started. Fierce price competition is also threatening the solvency of American carriers such as Pan Am and Braniff. Last summer Laker admitted that the airline business had become "a hell of a poker game." Sir Freddie, and his planes, will be missed by thousands of budget travelers on both sides of the Atlantic...