When 'The Donald' Ran 'The Shuttle'

What an interesting footnote to history. I used to fly the Eastern and NY Air shuttle in the eighties and it was an amazing experience. You did NOT have a ticket but rather a boarding number. If it was under 85, you knew you were getting on the aircraft. In 45 minutes of flight, the stewardesses would serve you coffee and a bagel as well as take your credit card to pay for the flight. I am sure many of you remember landing in 727's. You landed fast and hard and I have witnessed landings with the stewardesses still collecting trash while the aircraft was landing in Washington.

The EAL Shuttle was no flying carpet experience, more like a bus, no reservations, but it served the purpose, you went in, sat down, pulled out your credit card and landed shortly afterwards. One day I was flying LGA to DCA, got to the terminal after the flight had been filled and doors closed. They told me that they can pull out another 727 for me and some 4 other guys but we declined as we were not in a rush. I am not too sure but somebody told me that when they faced a problem like this Eastern had some exec jets ready like Citations or whatever to carry a few pax at less cost than sending a 727.

In 1989, I had the experience of flying Trump Shuttle, and don't quite recall any of the glamour reflected in modern-day press coverage. As I recall, at the time, a terrible frontal system was effecting the East Coast, and I caught the last Trump Shuttle B727 out of KBOS en route to KLGA before weather deteriorated. Somewhere mid-route, our flight was placed into an extended hold, and the crew elected to divert to KBDL to wait out the front. We sat on the ramp at KBDL for SIX hours using a combination of APU and GPU voltage, and all beverage and ice stores were quickly depleted. Despite the pleas of many passengers who just wanted to walk over to the terminal and rent cars to drive the rest of the way to NYC, we were prohibited from deplaning due to "safety concerns." We eventually took on a few thousand pounds of Jet A and resumed the flight at dusk, still with low ceilings, and landed very long on KLGA's RWY22 with thrust reversers screaming, and thankfully somehow ended up at the terminal instead of in Flushing Bay.

Trump never accepted defeat or that his business lost any money. Talk about a snake oil salesman, right.