Flying for Peanuts: Tough Deals, Steep Bargains, and Revolution in the Skies

Summary

Frank Lorenzo is the epitome of the American dream. A first-generation American and entrepreneur, Lorenzo started an airline advisory business in his mid-twenties and ultimately rose to control the largest fleet of airplanes in the free world.

Flying for Peanuts explains how the son of Spanish immigrants put himself through Columbia College by driving a Coca-Cola truck and then grew the fledgling advisory into ownership of Texas International Airlines. From there, Lorenzo became CEO of Continental Airlines, a large loss-making west coast airline at the time.

This airline business memoir gives a play-by-play of the high-stakes negotiations that got Lorenzo there, including faceoffs with Carl Icahn and a chapter devoted to selling the Eastern Airlines Shuttle to Donald Trump, soon to become the doomed Trump Shuttle. It details Lorenzo's competition with upstarts like Southwest Airlines and the clashes with unions that led Fortune's to name him one of "America's toughest bosses," along with accolades from his employees.

Flying for Peanuts is for anyone interested in the American airline industry and anyone wanting to apply a trailblazing executive's lessons for their own career success.