
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 27, 1990                   TAG: 9007270195
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

EASTERN PASSENGERS UNDETERRED

The indictment of Eastern Airlines on charges of ignoring maintenance and falsifying records could not have come at a more trying time for the carrier, industry analysts said Thursday.

July is a peak travel season, and the airline has just begun an ambitious advertising campaign aimed at winning back business travelers and travel agents.

But Eastern and travel agents reported Thursday few passengers had canceled flights because of a federal grand jury's action.

Of more than 6,000 calls to Eastern's reservation lines in Miami on Thursday, only 20 people canceled reservations because of the indictments, said Jim Ashlock, a company spokesman in Miami. He said there was no marked decline in people making reservations for Eastern flights.

Laurie DeMaio, a spokeswoman for Thomas Cook Travel in Cambridge, Mass., said Eastern's "aggressive pricing has been helpful."

The 60-count indictment, returned by a grand jury in Brooklyn on Wednesday, accused Eastern and nine of its current and former managers with a scheme in which repairs and maintenance on Eastern jets were routinely ignored and documents were falsified to cover up the lapses.

The indictment, which covers July 1985 to last October, also outlined a practice of pressure and intimidation from executives at the airline's headquarters in Miami to "keep the aircraft in flight at all costs."

Eastern declined to comment on the airline's strategy in an expected trial.

by CNB