The Shuttle Shuffle

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE remember that Donald Trump once owned an airline.
Say what you want of the man – there’s plenty to say – but the Trump Shuttle, which flew hourly between Boston, New York-LaGuardia, and Washington-National, from 1989 until 1992, was a dependable product that I, for one, have fond memories of.
Trump had purchased the operation from the dying (or sabotaged; see Lorenzo, below) Eastern Air Lines, which had been running its own Shuttle on the busy BOS-LGA-DCA routes for nearly thirty years. Trump used Boeing 727s – a mix of -100 and -200 variants. The interiors were done up in his signature style, with lots of faux-wood veneer, gold fixtures, leather and chrome. His Vegas-Arabia aesthetic presaged the cabins used by Emirates many years later.
I flew the Trump Shuttle between Boston and LaGuardia approximately one zillion times between 1990 and 1992. Those garish interiors weren’t to my taste, but the planes were comfortable and on-time. The staff, including the flight crews, were always friendly.
My first-ever ride in a jetliner cockpit, on the morning of February 2, 1991 – an unseasonably warm Saturday, I remember – was on the flight deck jumpseat of a Trump 727. The airplane carried the registration N918TS, and you can see it in the photo below. The jet was originally built for Eastern in 1970. It was scrapped in 1997.

This post was published at Lew Rockwell on December 9, 2016.