Frank Lorenzo

Book

Flying for Peanuts

Tough Deals, Steep Bargains,
and Revolution in the Skies

by Frank Lorenzo


Bold and innovative, former Continental Airlines CEO Frank Lorenzo was an agent of change in the skies during his 25-year career with the airlines.


In his engrossing book, FLYING FOR PEANUTS: Tough Deals, Steep Bargains, and Revolution in the Skies, Frank Lorenzo tells his story—one that reveals how his ability to think big and take the route less traveled radically changed the way we now fly. For instance, while leading Houston-based Texas International in the late 1970s, he and his team embraced an experiment of airline deregulation and became a pioneer of lower fares; they labeled these “Peanut Fares.” These cut-rate prices brought air travel to millions more Americans and quickly became the model for the industry.

Armed with a strong competitive spirit, Lorenzo’s career was marked by a visionary approach, as well as legendary deals, including:

  • The sale of the Eastern Airlines Shuttle to Donald Trump for $365 million—despite a union strike that nearly sank the deal. The play-by-play of Lorenzo’s negotiation with the master dealmaker himself offers revealing takes on the man who would one day become the 45th president. 
  • His stealth play for Miami-based National Airlines, which was ultimately unsuccessful, but which garnered Texas International a healthy $46 million ($197 million today) profit, worldwide headlines and the cash to go after another carrier to survive with his small airline.

  • The creation in 1980 of the first new airline—New York Air—to take advantage of recently passed airline deregulation and to compete against the Eastern Air Shuttle, through a newly formed holding company—Texas Air Corp.
  • The takeover of Continental Airlines for $150 million ($640 million today) in a first-ever tender offer by/for another airline. Restructuring costs and debt through bankruptcy, Lorenzo was able to save the financially ailing company, eventually adding thousands of jobs and ultimately being acquired by United Airlines. As had TIA, Continental again reshaped airfares, introducing the first non-refundable fares in the industry, allowing millions more people to travel than could afford it previously.


  • The deal to acquire Eastern Airlines was a difficult one, ultimately proving unsuccessful because the unions bitterly fought the necessary changes to save the rapidly failing airline, leading to bankruptcy and eventual dismantling.


Over the course of his storied career, Lorenzo created an empire in the skies, transforming the small Texas International Airlines into a subsidiary of Texas Air—at one point becoming the largest airline holding company in the free world. It would eventually include Texas Air, New York Air, Continental, Eastern Airlines, People Express, Frontier and several other small carriers.


If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to be at the table as one of the titans of the skies ushered in a new era of deregulation and forced the airline industry to change, Lorenzo’s fully illustrated book serves as a window into that world. It’s his story—one that begins with him as a young boy living in Rego Park, Queens in New York City, watching the planes as they crossed over his house from nearby LaGuardia Airport, and it ends with what this longtime high-flying executive thinks about the state of the airline industry today.