Eastern Airlines was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution, it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Eastern was one of the "Big Four" domestic airlines created by the Spoils Conferences of 1930, and was headed in its early years by World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. It had a near monopoly in air travel between New York and Florida from the 1930s until the 1950s and dominated this market for decades afterward.
During airline deregulation in the late 1970s and early 1980s, labor disputes and high debt loads strained the company under the leadership of former ast...