October 25, 2024 • 35 mins
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time, time, time.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Luck and load.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
The Michael Very Show is on the air.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Shut to take this job.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
And shove it.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
Joy you like movies about gladiators.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Gets down on thee my yankee, my lanky.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Well sometimes I get the Vinstrel crabs for your hard This.
Speaker 5 (00:32):
Time you pipe on Tupac.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
To treat for me to get to do things like this.
I received a book in the mail. You know this
is this is how book interviews typically go go about.
And there's a PR firm, and you know they they
base their pitch based on your show. And we've done
a number of business interviews over the years, and so
we show up on the list. And the book is
(00:58):
called Flying for Peanuts, Tough Deals, Steep Bargains and Revolution
in the Skies. And I see and I'm thinking, I
see Frank Lorenzo, and I think, oh, it's a book
about Frank Lorenzo, says Frank Lorenzo, former CEO of Content Airlines.
And I opened it up and I said, Chad who
wrote the book? And Chad Knakanishi and Ched said Frank
(01:21):
Lorenzo wrote the book. I said, I hadn't heard from
Frank Lorenzo in years. I didn't know he was still around.
He's told his story. Well, you know, my mind harkened
to the longshoreman's strike that was threatened. I mean, people
remember that wasn't so long ago, and that goon Garrett
or Barrett or whatever, the mobbed up mafia guy who
(01:42):
threatened that he was going to cripple every one of
us if the longshoreman didn't get what they wanted, which
was to be paid way more than doctors and never
have to work, and no technology and ruin the ports.
And all I could think was love him or hate him.
Lorenzo kind of had some of those same battles with Airline,
and that's part of why if somebody didn't like him
(02:02):
for the same reason, for the same reason if somebody
didn't like Ronald Reagan, it's because of the air traffic controllers.
It's tough to run a business when you've got a
union on the other side. So with that being said,
welcome to the programme, Frank Lorenzo.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So first, first of all, why write the book? I
find that when someone you've done everything you're going to do,
you don't need the money. When someone writes a book
at this point in their life, not just their career,
their life. It's because they want to make sure that
the truth gets out there and they don't feel like
it did.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Do you qualify for that?
Speaker 5 (02:37):
Oh for sure, for sure. As a matter of fact,
just to add a point in what you said before, Yes,
I had a deal with the factors you mentioned of
costs and that sort of thing. But the other thing
we had to deal with which was very unusual and
(03:00):
you know, and airlines had to deal with this. Uh.
As the years passed after this was airlines the regulation
where all of a sudden competition, uh. You know, there
was just total competition. The big guys could come into
(03:20):
our small routes as the smallest airline, and the Southwest
airlines could go into our interstate routes. So we were
the ham and the Sandwich. We were in an totally
impossible position as the as that period of time came about.
(03:44):
Uh So that just adds to your point. But why
did I write the book? Uh? I think you hit
at it in major part. There were a few reasons.
One was and most of importantly, I wanted to set
down in writing what it was really like. Nobody else
(04:07):
has really written about it from the inside. You know,
there's been reporters from the outside doing research and this
and that, but nobody really laid out from the inside
what it was like dealing with airline to regulation, what
it was like dealing with the change that we had
to confront, and learning about the things that we did
(04:34):
to revolutionize the business. I mean, we have a long
list of firsts aside from being the first airline to
offer low fares, which is why we called them peanut fairs,
and which gave rise to the name of the book,
but it was just a whole bunch of things. We
(04:55):
were the first airlines to think, well, wait a minute,
I'm not able to do a merger with x Y
z earl and it makes great sense, so I'm going
to go into the marketplace and buy their stock. Nobody
has done that before from inside the industry, and nobody
(05:17):
has done it since from inside the industry. Obviously, we
have people like Southwest and what they're going through, but
that's from activists outside the industry, and we were not
an activist. We wanted to acquire the company in our cases.
So anyway, I have a long story, and I wanted
(05:38):
to set the record straight and get it out there.
But there were also even more other reasons too. You know,
I had people telling me that this is a great
story for people starting out without a lot of money,
because after all, we started out with nothing, and when
I was twenty six, we had six thousand dollars net worth,
(06:02):
and that's how we started a little company. Our first
office was in the was in the public library in
New York. But then six years later we were able
to put together and buy a piece of a little
airline in Texas that everybody hated, was losing a lot
(06:25):
of money, and it had Southwest saying it was going
to put them out of business. Yes, they had high,
high labor costs, and but you know, to us, we
didn't care about anything. We were so young, we weren't
smart enough to know how difficult it was. We just
(06:46):
knew it was an airline and we could get a
piece of it and control it. And we we were
just fat, dumb and happy.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
So for people who don't know the story, Frank, I
want to make sure Frank Lorenzo's our guest. The book
is flying for peanuts. I want to just do a
brief catch up so that they understand it, because then
I want to again, want to get into a lot
of the issues you dealt with are still issues today.
Just real quick and correct me if I'm wrong. That
first entity that y'all kind of took control of was
(07:14):
was Texas International Airlines TIA, and you're competing with Southwest Airlines.
Can you take about a minute and talk about where
the airline industry was, because these are kind of regional
hub deals and how it was different than today.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Well, in those days, Michael, the airline industry is completely regulated,
and we had eighteen airlines, of which nine were the
trunk so called trunk airlines, the major airlines American, United, Delta,
that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Then.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
But then you had a lot of others continent, a
little airline on the west coast called Continental Western Airlines,
us ERA in the east, and then there were the
so called regional airlines, and Texas International was the smallest
of the regional airlines. These are companies like Ozark Airlines,
(08:11):
Southern Airlines, South what was some of the other names,
But anyway, those are the basically small companies that were
in the industry that provided just regional service, and that
was the makeup of the industry at the time.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Frank Lorenzo's our guest. The book is called Flying for Peanuts.
I asked Ramon when we were going to be doing
this interview. I said, Aramonia, who Frank Lorenzo. He says, no,
We'll look him up. It's a fascinating story. And he
looked him up and he goes.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
First picture that pops.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Up is him and Donald Trump. We'll tell you.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Why we are going to the border. We've been to
the border with the Michael Y and I haven't been
to UK.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
All my bags are packed ready to go. I'm standing
here outside the door. I hate to wake you up
to say goodbye, but the dawn is breaking. Sir morn,
the taxis waited. He's blown his horn already. I'm so lord,
(09:36):
so my couldve souhiss me, I smile for me.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Tell me Carminal Airlines, Eastern Airlines, TA t w A.
There was once pan Am Airlines and my wife and
I flew on. There are lots of airlines over the
years that have come and gone to legacy airlines, heritage airlines.
I remember the first time I flew British airways. My wife,
(10:05):
being the anglophile from India that she is so excited
our cousin became a piloted air India. I love the
whole airline thing. You know, you've got airlines that represent nations.
When we go to India, we often fly golf Air
or United Arab Emirates and people think we're crazy. It's
(10:26):
one of the best best carriers I've ever I've ever
been on. I've had better experiences there than the French airline.
The Dutch do a good job. But I will tell
you those folks, if you want a great experience, it's
it's a great experience. There's no way around that. The
early days of Frank Lorenzo putting together this fledgling airline,
(10:49):
they competed against Herb keller Hare's Southwest Airlines, and we
talked a little bit about that. But your book is
called Flying for Peanuts, a subject that that Herb Kella
hair of built into his brand. You know that the
whole peanut thing that gave you peanuts. When when you
look back on that battle, looking at what you saw
then the price point battle of trying to get these
(11:13):
flights from Houston, Dallas, San Antone primarily, which were the
big routes.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
What did you do right?
Speaker 3 (11:19):
What did you do wrong? And how was that different? Then?
How was the traveler different because it was all mostly
business travel back then, wasn't it.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Well, No, there was a lot of pleasure pleasure travel too.
It was a very very good mix, but you had
a very very different environment. Southwest started because it was
a no other airlines or created on an interstate basis.
(11:47):
Southwest started as an intrust state airline because Texas happened
to be large enough to support its own internal airline. Houston, Dallas,
San Antonio, and Austin in there too for good measure.
So those were the cities that supported their own airline
(12:09):
and that was the origin of Southwest, But it also
was the heart of Texas International, although we also had
some non non Texas roots routes that went up to
Denver and Albuquerque and down into Mexico, but they were
(12:30):
small potatoes compared to the other ones. So Southwest was
a major competitor. But it's a funny thing. Peanuts fairs
for us were the first time that any airline had
offered cut rate airline tickets on an unrestricted basis, and
(12:52):
we ended up calling them peanut fairs. And in the eighties,
one of my A very good friend of mine was
always of Keller and Herb used to kid me when
I would see him and he'd say, you know, Frank,
sometimes it drives me crazy. But one of my reservations,
people will call me and say we need to have
(13:14):
Peanuts Ferris because because people are calling up saying they
want to have Southwest Peanut Faires. And of course that
was a brand that we had put together. Southwest always
had good farries, but they didn't have Peanut Ferris, and
they used to drive them crazy.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Let me ask you, Frank, Lorenzo's our guest. The book
is flying for Peanuts. Those airline passengers in those days
that you're going after. Are those people who might have
previously driven and now you get them on a plane.
Are they almost exclusively people that were flying another airline
but you want them to just go over to your airline.
(13:55):
Are they people who this weekend, instead of staying at
home or driving to the lake, they fly somewhere? What
was the what was the demographic of that consumer?
Speaker 5 (14:06):
Well, it was it was kind of an all above,
all of the above, Michael. It was it was all
of those pieces a new market really got created. It
wasn't just business. And it wasn't just the you know,
traditional pleasure traveler, but it was people that because of
(14:27):
the fairs being so much lower, they had changed their
ideas for vacations, how they traveled, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Frank Lorenzo is our guest, former Continent Airlines CEO. The
book is called Flying for Peanuts. Fortune magazine once named
you America's toughest boss. You had to deal with a
union that, from what I understand, a union that wanted
to pay increase and in terms that you couldn't make
a business make money on it. I want to put
(15:00):
words in your in your mouth, the Airline Pilot's Association,
and you were going at it. Looking back, now, was
your coverage fair? What were your challenges? Why did you
do what you did?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Oh? No, my coverage was never very fair. Just take
that title America's toughest boss. They didn't focus on the
fact that I probably had America's toughest job, America's toughest
job because it was taking the smallest airline in the
land and trying to deal with Southwest Airlines on the
(15:40):
one side and the big airlines on the other side,
where all of a sudden. Now you had startups coming
in with very low costs and having fair low fares
based on that. So we had an impossible competitive equation
and it was good clearly going to put us out
(16:01):
of business unless we change our strategies. So we came
up with a strategy to deal with it. And you know,
so much of that is covered in the book, but
no question about it, we had a very very very
different equation than what the press put forward. Naturally, our
(16:25):
pilot unions were out there all the time trying to
make us out to be what we weren't.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
You are not originally from Houston. Your parents were Spanish immigrants.
You end up in Houston on business deals, and yet
you have remained as a lot of people have what
about Houston specifically? Did you say you could have lived
anywhere you wanted In New York would have seemed to
make more sense. Why stay in Houston?
Speaker 5 (16:55):
We love Houston. We came down fifty two years ago
when my wife and I got married. We raised our kids,
We raised all of our children. I like to say
I had forty nine forty nine tuition years at Kincaid
(17:19):
School and a couple at Saint John's. Also and we
have just we love the atmosphere and so forth. Now listen,
it isn't that Houston's perfect. We have an office in
New York, which is closer to investments and you know,
(17:39):
in general and things like that, and we spend a
fair amount of time. I also have a week a
summer place in Nantucket and Massachusetts, so we spent time.
We spent a fair time in the Northeast. But we're
very fond of Houston and we love our time there.
(18:04):
When it came time to set up a book talk,
the first place that popped in my mind was the
Caronado Club to come down and talk to. So Houston
is a major part of our life and I don't
see anything changing in the future.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Hold out there, Frank Lorenzo one more segment, former Continental
Airline CEO. The book is Flying for Peanuts, tough Deals,
Steve bargains, and revolution in the sky.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
Remember the Democrats are the party of disinformation.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So the economy is up, price inflation is down, reel
incomes are up, gas prices are down.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Michael Very Show, Frank Lorenzo is our guest.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
He was a titan of the airline industry. He did
a major deal with Donald Trump. For many, many years,
he was a controversial and much talked about leader in
the aviation industry. Fortune magazine once named him America's toughest boss,
and I'm not sure they meant that as a compliment.
Everybody that knows airlines knows the industry. There are some
(19:33):
major personalities over the years in that industry. Frank Lorenzo
is certainly one of them. Herb Kellehare of course with
Southwest Airlines, Gordon Bethune, and I would argue that's the
triumvirate of the major three airline leaders over the years
and their battles and how it all shook out to today,
because I don't think today's airline travel from the consumer
(19:56):
perspective is so good and it doesn't appear to be
so good from the that's her perspective either, as many
bailouts as they need to have. Frank Lorenzo, the book
Flying for Peanuts. Uh, let me ask you to kind
of catch us up to Continental Airlines and how you
take control of that, and then I want to get
into some of the management and operations issues you had
to deal with.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
But before I do that, I do want to correct
you on one thing. On your list of major people
in the industry, you can't leave out Bob crandall. Bob
crandall that American was bigger than and really, uh, he
was one of the most important guys in the business.
He revolutionized a lot of stuff, uh, in the in
(20:42):
the business. But anyway, I just wanted to to.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
No, I think that's fair, that's absolutely fair.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
Yet to get that on the record, but uh, your
your you want to know a little bit more about
the book or about Trump. Did you want to hear
about the Trump part.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, let's go to that first, because I want people
who don't know who you are or didn't and weren't around,
to understand why these stories are so interesting in how
there's nothing new in the world.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
Well, I have a whole chapter in my book on
my dealings with Trump. It started off when we in
eighty six, in nineteen eighty six bought Eastern Airlines and
(21:39):
Eastern did not turn out to be a good deal
at all for us. But along the way, in order
to raise cash, we sold the Eastern shuttle to Donald Trump.
And Donald wouldn't wouldn't negotiate with anybody else, but he
wanted to talk to the top man. So he and
(22:01):
I did all the negotiations, and the negotiations were at
the at the Plaza Hotel, or they were on his boat,
the Trump Princess. We had our family out to dinner
one night. It's all in the book. It's a fascinating chapter.
And I also have a lot of photos of all
(22:24):
the various times that I spent with the former president.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
When you sold off that piece of Eastern and you
end up taking control of Continental and that develops into
a major airline across the country and now a legacy carrier.
Of course that ends up with United. How was the
industry different at that time as a business and as
(22:54):
a consumer. How would it have been different for me
getting on the plane, booking flights that sort of thing.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Oh, Michael, the changes have been massive. You can start
off with technology. Uh, you know, people people, When I
tell this to people, they don't they find it hard
to believe. But when I left, when I left Continental,
I did not have a computer on my desk.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
We had a lot of computers in our reservation center,
but not on my desk. The industry was it was
so different than it is today in ways of how
you're borded an airplane, how you booked the flight, how
you where you would find a flight listed. You could
(23:47):
call up an airline and make a booking and not
show up. I mean, that was one of the problems
we used to have, is is so many people not
showing up for flights because we were have we would
have to allow about fifteen percent on average for people
not showing up for flights. Today, of course that's all
(24:11):
changed because you don't make a reservation, you buy a
ticket with rare exceptions, and so as a consequence, airlines
have much much higher load factors than they did in
those days, which affects prices. Affects prices in a big way.
(24:35):
But you know, on the other hand, in terms of technology,
while there have been a lot of changes, you know,
the airplane, as you can see on the cover, you
have airplanes on the cover that span thirty years, and
yet they all have wings because you need wings for
(25:00):
for lift. They have a body to carry your payload,
they have engines to propel the machine, and you have
a tail to balance it and steer it. So you know,
and that basic that doesn't go back to airline to regulation,
that goes back to orable right, and we haven't changed it.
(25:23):
And as you go forward, Yes, we may have supersonic flight.
I really think we will, and I think it's going
to be wonderful, but it's still going to be a
flying machine, and it's going to have to have those
basic factors together. I can mention one other thing too,
(25:46):
and that is that there's so much more entrepreneurial management
today than there were in those days, thanks to the
fact that we now have the government out of the business.
And today the government regulates safety, but it doesn't get
involved in the economics, or shouldn't get involved in the economics.
(26:07):
Of course, this administration has been a little different. Yes,
they have stuck their nose in. And I wrote an
op ed piece for the Wall Street Journal, in fact
that appeared two months ago on this exact subject.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Frank Lorenzo is our guest.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
The book is flying for peanuts, tough deals, steep bargains,
and revolution in the skies. We will continue our conversation
with him.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
The biggest problem is from within, no ability for the
oil industry to continue to drill period. Michael, Yes, the
sick radical people from within.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
He was, I said, Don cloudy and thence with the
Prima Isles line at gotta get down my hand and
the westin Oil can under my living chair.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Frank Lorenzo started many years ago. He's eighty four, started
many years ago putting deals together and ended up with
a small regional airline in more of a fledgling airline industry.
It's changed a lot since then, and then managed to
do some things that it hadn't been done an airline,
(27:34):
basically by another airline and gobbling those up and going.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Through the deregulation process.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I asked our listeners for their Frank Lorenzo moments, thoughts, anecdotes, criticisms, compliments,
and todd in the Woodlands, wrote Czar. The amazing thing
about Frank Lorenzo was that he guided Texas International slash
Continental through deregulation greater than in state rival Branif. Well,
(28:05):
that's the name that most people hadn't heard in a
long time. Harding Lawrence, who once worked for Continental ran
Branif and was the polar opposite of Frank Lorenzo. Frank
Lorenzo deserves enormous credit for making Continental a survivor and
having something left for your friend Gordon bethoone to build
upon years later. Well, that's a nice thing to have
(28:26):
somebody to say about you, Frank Lorenzo.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
That happens to be really spot on truth. I mean,
I hate to say it, it's sort of immodest of me,
but the writer of that letter really understood what was
going on. I look, I knew Harding Lawrence. Well, I
have some Harding Lawrence stories. I slept with him in
(28:51):
his apartment one time, so I can go on and
on about Harding Lawrence. But Harding just didn't understand what
was going on. He went the regulation hit. Instead of
focusing on his costs and focusing on his internal business,
he was out there expanding. He was acquiring roots into
(29:13):
the Pacific and so forth, which was nuts, and that's
what put him out of business. He wanted to acquire
us in nineteen seventy nine because we had a lot
of cash nineteen eighty and of course we weren't interested.
We were possibly interested in merging the airlines. And the
(29:35):
funny part about it is that he didn't want to
merge the airlines. He just wanted to merge with Texas Era,
where all the cash was.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Let me ask you this, Frank Lorenzo, is our guest.
The book is called Flying for Peanuts. I'm going to
ask the two different Frank Lorenzo's. I'm going to ask
twenty year old Frank Lorenzo and then eighty four year
old Frank Lorenzo. If I had asked twenty year old
Frank Lorenzo, if I said, look, you've been banned from aviation,
put that out of your mind. Find another industry to
(30:02):
to go chart your course? What would that have been?
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Well, let me just say, by the way, the Unions
has always peddled this business banned from the industry. I
was never banned from the industry. That was total. It
was an out and out lie. It isn't just in
the current political elections that there's out and out lies.
That was a total, total lie. I signed a contract
(30:29):
with SAS to sell our control position and continental and
as a standard in deals with this type, I had
a no compete clause for some number of years. I
think it was five or I think it was five years,
and that was it. I was never banned from the industry.
(30:52):
The DOT turned down an application under pressure from the
Unions when we were trying to start airline in nineteen
ninety three. After I left the small airline on the
East coast, and we got turned down because again it's
a whole political thing, which I can explain with more time.
(31:14):
But that was hardly of being banned from the industry.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
And I didn't mean to say that. But if you
had chosen at that age, what I meant to say is,
at that age i'd said you can't go into aviation,
what would you instead have gone into?
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Well? I looked at a number of other industries, by
the way, which is covered nicely in the book, including
the beer and banjo business, including other corporations. But I
had this love of aviation, of airlines. Even more than
just aviation was airlines. I just had this thing from
when I was fifteen and I took my first flight.
(31:51):
I just loved them. TWA was my favorite. In my book,
I show copies of letters that I got from TWA
where when I was sixteen and eighteen, i'd been applying
for jobs at TWA. When I was eighteen, they asked
me to come in for an interview, and then, of course,
(32:13):
by actually by coincidence, I end up working for t WA.
When I first came out of Harvard Business School, i'd
worked there for a couple a couple of a couple
of years. So I just I had I always had
this thing for airlines, and even today at eighty four,
(32:36):
I have to admit that, even though I've always said,
you know, I'm not going to do anything with aviation,
I'm going to stay away from airline stocks, that's actually
been both because I have. We took a major position
in United Airlines, in fact, because we really like the
way the company is being built. Bat Stock's done nicely.
(33:00):
We made an investment in a startup airline, So we
have done stuff in the aviation even these days. And
I keep my eye on what's going on, even at
eighty four.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
And let me ask you, I've got about a minute
and a half looking back now over your career, if
you say, what's an industry that now I realized maybe
I should have invested in, Maybe I would have liked
to have led that has turned out to be really
impressive that I didn't see coming.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Well, it wasn't even that we didn't see it coming,
but you didn't want to take the risk. Obviously we
would have done better had we just invested five years
ago in AI and anything related to it. And it
became a frenzy. You can't even come close to the
(33:47):
returns that have come to the companies that are there.
But as far as it, as far as the time
and true industry, airline investing has always been treacherous because
airlines do well and they don't do well. They're very
sensitive to fuel prices, They're very sensitive to the economy. Uh.
(34:12):
We used to we used to say that, uh, airlines
have all the all these sensitivities capital uh and so forth.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Frank Lorenzo, the book is Flying for Peanuts, tough Deals,
Steve bargains, and revolution in the Skies. I know there
are a lot of folks based on the emails I
have received, who lived through the transformative moments of how
(34:42):
we travel. You know, you think about airline travel and
how important it is to our lives today. That's why
nine to eleven use the airline as the tool. Because
terrorism is about a mental war, and when you can
shut people's airline in this down by pure fear, you
can shut down their economy now more than ever. How
(35:04):
many people do you know that Chris crossed the country
to see their kids because they're divorced, or to visit
their various offices It's incredible in such a short period
of time, how the world has shrunk, our world has shrunk.
How we're closer than ever because we can move around
so easily and so freely. The book again, Flying for
(35:26):
Peanuts by Frank Lorenzo, former Continental Airlines CEO.
It's that time time, time, time.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Luck and load.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
The Michael Very Show is on the air.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Shut to take this job.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
And shove it.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
Joy you like movies about gladiators.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Gets down on thee my yankee, my lanky.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Well sometimes I get the Vinstrel crabs for your hard This.
Speaker 5 (00:32):
Time you pipe on Tupac.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
To treat for me to get to do things like this.
I received a book in the mail. You know this
is this is how book interviews typically go go about.
And there's a PR firm, and you know they they
base their pitch based on your show. And we've done
a number of business interviews over the years, and so
we show up on the list. And the book is
(00:58):
called Flying for Peanuts, Tough Deals, Steep Bargains and Revolution
in the Skies. And I see and I'm thinking, I
see Frank Lorenzo, and I think, oh, it's a book
about Frank Lorenzo, says Frank Lorenzo, former CEO of Content Airlines.
And I opened it up and I said, Chad who
wrote the book? And Chad Knakanishi and Ched said Frank
(01:21):
Lorenzo wrote the book. I said, I hadn't heard from
Frank Lorenzo in years. I didn't know he was still around.
He's told his story. Well, you know, my mind harkened
to the longshoreman's strike that was threatened. I mean, people
remember that wasn't so long ago, and that goon Garrett
or Barrett or whatever, the mobbed up mafia guy who
(01:42):
threatened that he was going to cripple every one of
us if the longshoreman didn't get what they wanted, which
was to be paid way more than doctors and never
have to work, and no technology and ruin the ports.
And all I could think was love him or hate him.
Lorenzo kind of had some of those same battles with Airline,
and that's part of why if somebody didn't like him
(02:02):
for the same reason, for the same reason if somebody
didn't like Ronald Reagan, it's because of the air traffic controllers.
It's tough to run a business when you've got a
union on the other side. So with that being said,
welcome to the programme, Frank Lorenzo.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So first, first of all, why write the book? I
find that when someone you've done everything you're going to do,
you don't need the money. When someone writes a book
at this point in their life, not just their career,
their life. It's because they want to make sure that
the truth gets out there and they don't feel like
it did.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Do you qualify for that?
Speaker 5 (02:37):
Oh for sure, for sure. As a matter of fact,
just to add a point in what you said before, Yes,
I had a deal with the factors you mentioned of
costs and that sort of thing. But the other thing
we had to deal with which was very unusual and
(03:00):
you know, and airlines had to deal with this. Uh.
As the years passed after this was airlines the regulation
where all of a sudden competition, uh. You know, there
was just total competition. The big guys could come into
(03:20):
our small routes as the smallest airline, and the Southwest
airlines could go into our interstate routes. So we were
the ham and the Sandwich. We were in an totally
impossible position as the as that period of time came about.
(03:44):
Uh So that just adds to your point. But why
did I write the book? Uh? I think you hit
at it in major part. There were a few reasons.
One was and most of importantly, I wanted to set
down in writing what it was really like. Nobody else
(04:07):
has really written about it from the inside. You know,
there's been reporters from the outside doing research and this
and that, but nobody really laid out from the inside
what it was like dealing with airline to regulation, what
it was like dealing with the change that we had
to confront, and learning about the things that we did
(04:34):
to revolutionize the business. I mean, we have a long
list of firsts aside from being the first airline to
offer low fares, which is why we called them peanut fairs,
and which gave rise to the name of the book,
but it was just a whole bunch of things. We
(04:55):
were the first airlines to think, well, wait a minute,
I'm not able to do a merger with x Y
z earl and it makes great sense, so I'm going
to go into the marketplace and buy their stock. Nobody
has done that before from inside the industry, and nobody
(05:17):
has done it since from inside the industry. Obviously, we
have people like Southwest and what they're going through, but
that's from activists outside the industry, and we were not
an activist. We wanted to acquire the company in our cases.
So anyway, I have a long story, and I wanted
(05:38):
to set the record straight and get it out there.
But there were also even more other reasons too. You know,
I had people telling me that this is a great
story for people starting out without a lot of money,
because after all, we started out with nothing, and when
I was twenty six, we had six thousand dollars net worth,
(06:02):
and that's how we started a little company. Our first
office was in the was in the public library in
New York. But then six years later we were able
to put together and buy a piece of a little
airline in Texas that everybody hated, was losing a lot
(06:25):
of money, and it had Southwest saying it was going
to put them out of business. Yes, they had high,
high labor costs, and but you know, to us, we
didn't care about anything. We were so young, we weren't
smart enough to know how difficult it was. We just
(06:46):
knew it was an airline and we could get a
piece of it and control it. And we we were
just fat, dumb and happy.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
So for people who don't know the story, Frank, I
want to make sure Frank Lorenzo's our guest. The book
is flying for peanuts. I want to just do a
brief catch up so that they understand it, because then
I want to again, want to get into a lot
of the issues you dealt with are still issues today.
Just real quick and correct me if I'm wrong. That
first entity that y'all kind of took control of was
(07:14):
was Texas International Airlines TIA, and you're competing with Southwest Airlines.
Can you take about a minute and talk about where
the airline industry was, because these are kind of regional
hub deals and how it was different than today.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Well, in those days, Michael, the airline industry is completely regulated,
and we had eighteen airlines, of which nine were the
trunk so called trunk airlines, the major airlines American, United, Delta,
that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Then.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
But then you had a lot of others continent, a
little airline on the west coast called Continental Western Airlines,
us ERA in the east, and then there were the
so called regional airlines, and Texas International was the smallest
of the regional airlines. These are companies like Ozark Airlines,
(08:11):
Southern Airlines, South what was some of the other names,
But anyway, those are the basically small companies that were
in the industry that provided just regional service, and that
was the makeup of the industry at the time.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Frank Lorenzo's our guest. The book is called Flying for Peanuts.
I asked Ramon when we were going to be doing
this interview. I said, Aramonia, who Frank Lorenzo. He says, no,
We'll look him up. It's a fascinating story. And he
looked him up and he goes.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
First picture that pops.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Up is him and Donald Trump. We'll tell you.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Why we are going to the border. We've been to
the border with the Michael Y and I haven't been
to UK.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
All my bags are packed ready to go. I'm standing
here outside the door. I hate to wake you up
to say goodbye, but the dawn is breaking. Sir morn,
the taxis waited. He's blown his horn already. I'm so lord,
(09:36):
so my couldve souhiss me, I smile for me.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Tell me Carminal Airlines, Eastern Airlines, TA t w A.
There was once pan Am Airlines and my wife and
I flew on. There are lots of airlines over the
years that have come and gone to legacy airlines, heritage airlines.
I remember the first time I flew British airways. My wife,
(10:05):
being the anglophile from India that she is so excited
our cousin became a piloted air India. I love the
whole airline thing. You know, you've got airlines that represent nations.
When we go to India, we often fly golf Air
or United Arab Emirates and people think we're crazy. It's
(10:26):
one of the best best carriers I've ever I've ever
been on. I've had better experiences there than the French airline.
The Dutch do a good job. But I will tell
you those folks, if you want a great experience, it's
it's a great experience. There's no way around that. The
early days of Frank Lorenzo putting together this fledgling airline,
(10:49):
they competed against Herb keller Hare's Southwest Airlines, and we
talked a little bit about that. But your book is
called Flying for Peanuts, a subject that that Herb Kella
hair of built into his brand. You know that the
whole peanut thing that gave you peanuts. When when you
look back on that battle, looking at what you saw
then the price point battle of trying to get these
(11:13):
flights from Houston, Dallas, San Antone primarily, which were the
big routes.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
What did you do right?
Speaker 3 (11:19):
What did you do wrong? And how was that different? Then?
How was the traveler different because it was all mostly
business travel back then, wasn't it.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Well, No, there was a lot of pleasure pleasure travel too.
It was a very very good mix, but you had
a very very different environment. Southwest started because it was
a no other airlines or created on an interstate basis.
(11:47):
Southwest started as an intrust state airline because Texas happened
to be large enough to support its own internal airline. Houston, Dallas,
San Antonio, and Austin in there too for good measure.
So those were the cities that supported their own airline
(12:09):
and that was the origin of Southwest, But it also
was the heart of Texas International, although we also had
some non non Texas roots routes that went up to
Denver and Albuquerque and down into Mexico, but they were
(12:30):
small potatoes compared to the other ones. So Southwest was
a major competitor. But it's a funny thing. Peanuts fairs
for us were the first time that any airline had
offered cut rate airline tickets on an unrestricted basis, and
(12:52):
we ended up calling them peanut fairs. And in the eighties,
one of my A very good friend of mine was
always of Keller and Herb used to kid me when
I would see him and he'd say, you know, Frank,
sometimes it drives me crazy. But one of my reservations,
people will call me and say we need to have
(13:14):
Peanuts Ferris because because people are calling up saying they
want to have Southwest Peanut Faires. And of course that
was a brand that we had put together. Southwest always
had good farries, but they didn't have Peanut Ferris, and
they used to drive them crazy.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Let me ask you, Frank, Lorenzo's our guest. The book
is flying for Peanuts. Those airline passengers in those days
that you're going after. Are those people who might have
previously driven and now you get them on a plane.
Are they almost exclusively people that were flying another airline
but you want them to just go over to your airline.
(13:55):
Are they people who this weekend, instead of staying at
home or driving to the lake, they fly somewhere? What
was the what was the demographic of that consumer?
Speaker 5 (14:06):
Well, it was it was kind of an all above,
all of the above, Michael. It was it was all
of those pieces a new market really got created. It
wasn't just business. And it wasn't just the you know,
traditional pleasure traveler, but it was people that because of
(14:27):
the fairs being so much lower, they had changed their
ideas for vacations, how they traveled, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Frank Lorenzo is our guest, former Continent Airlines CEO. The
book is called Flying for Peanuts. Fortune magazine once named
you America's toughest boss. You had to deal with a
union that, from what I understand, a union that wanted
to pay increase and in terms that you couldn't make
a business make money on it. I want to put
(15:00):
words in your in your mouth, the Airline Pilot's Association,
and you were going at it. Looking back, now, was
your coverage fair? What were your challenges? Why did you
do what you did?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Oh? No, my coverage was never very fair. Just take
that title America's toughest boss. They didn't focus on the
fact that I probably had America's toughest job, America's toughest
job because it was taking the smallest airline in the
land and trying to deal with Southwest Airlines on the
(15:40):
one side and the big airlines on the other side,
where all of a sudden. Now you had startups coming
in with very low costs and having fair low fares
based on that. So we had an impossible competitive equation
and it was good clearly going to put us out
(16:01):
of business unless we change our strategies. So we came
up with a strategy to deal with it. And you know,
so much of that is covered in the book, but
no question about it, we had a very very very
different equation than what the press put forward. Naturally, our
(16:25):
pilot unions were out there all the time trying to
make us out to be what we weren't.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
You are not originally from Houston. Your parents were Spanish immigrants.
You end up in Houston on business deals, and yet
you have remained as a lot of people have what
about Houston specifically? Did you say you could have lived
anywhere you wanted In New York would have seemed to
make more sense. Why stay in Houston?
Speaker 5 (16:55):
We love Houston. We came down fifty two years ago
when my wife and I got married. We raised our kids,
We raised all of our children. I like to say
I had forty nine forty nine tuition years at Kincaid
(17:19):
School and a couple at Saint John's. Also and we
have just we love the atmosphere and so forth. Now listen,
it isn't that Houston's perfect. We have an office in
New York, which is closer to investments and you know,
(17:39):
in general and things like that, and we spend a
fair amount of time. I also have a week a
summer place in Nantucket and Massachusetts, so we spent time.
We spent a fair time in the Northeast. But we're
very fond of Houston and we love our time there.
(18:04):
When it came time to set up a book talk,
the first place that popped in my mind was the
Caronado Club to come down and talk to. So Houston
is a major part of our life and I don't
see anything changing in the future.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Hold out there, Frank Lorenzo one more segment, former Continental
Airline CEO. The book is Flying for Peanuts, tough Deals,
Steve bargains, and revolution in the sky.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
Remember the Democrats are the party of disinformation.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So the economy is up, price inflation is down, reel
incomes are up, gas prices are down.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Michael Very Show, Frank Lorenzo is our guest.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
He was a titan of the airline industry. He did
a major deal with Donald Trump. For many, many years,
he was a controversial and much talked about leader in
the aviation industry. Fortune magazine once named him America's toughest boss,
and I'm not sure they meant that as a compliment.
Everybody that knows airlines knows the industry. There are some
(19:33):
major personalities over the years in that industry. Frank Lorenzo
is certainly one of them. Herb Kellehare of course with
Southwest Airlines, Gordon Bethune, and I would argue that's the
triumvirate of the major three airline leaders over the years
and their battles and how it all shook out to today,
because I don't think today's airline travel from the consumer
(19:56):
perspective is so good and it doesn't appear to be
so good from the that's her perspective either, as many
bailouts as they need to have. Frank Lorenzo, the book
Flying for Peanuts. Uh, let me ask you to kind
of catch us up to Continental Airlines and how you
take control of that, and then I want to get
into some of the management and operations issues you had
to deal with.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
But before I do that, I do want to correct
you on one thing. On your list of major people
in the industry, you can't leave out Bob crandall. Bob
crandall that American was bigger than and really, uh, he
was one of the most important guys in the business.
He revolutionized a lot of stuff, uh, in the in
(20:42):
the business. But anyway, I just wanted to to.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
No, I think that's fair, that's absolutely fair.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
Yet to get that on the record, but uh, your
your you want to know a little bit more about
the book or about Trump. Did you want to hear
about the Trump part.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, let's go to that first, because I want people
who don't know who you are or didn't and weren't around,
to understand why these stories are so interesting in how
there's nothing new in the world.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
Well, I have a whole chapter in my book on
my dealings with Trump. It started off when we in
eighty six, in nineteen eighty six bought Eastern Airlines and
(21:39):
Eastern did not turn out to be a good deal
at all for us. But along the way, in order
to raise cash, we sold the Eastern shuttle to Donald Trump.
And Donald wouldn't wouldn't negotiate with anybody else, but he
wanted to talk to the top man. So he and
(22:01):
I did all the negotiations, and the negotiations were at
the at the Plaza Hotel, or they were on his boat,
the Trump Princess. We had our family out to dinner
one night. It's all in the book. It's a fascinating chapter.
And I also have a lot of photos of all
(22:24):
the various times that I spent with the former president.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
When you sold off that piece of Eastern and you
end up taking control of Continental and that develops into
a major airline across the country and now a legacy carrier.
Of course that ends up with United. How was the
industry different at that time as a business and as
(22:54):
a consumer. How would it have been different for me
getting on the plane, booking flights that sort of thing.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Oh, Michael, the changes have been massive. You can start
off with technology. Uh, you know, people people, When I
tell this to people, they don't they find it hard
to believe. But when I left, when I left Continental,
I did not have a computer on my desk.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
We had a lot of computers in our reservation center,
but not on my desk. The industry was it was
so different than it is today in ways of how
you're borded an airplane, how you booked the flight, how
you where you would find a flight listed. You could
(23:47):
call up an airline and make a booking and not
show up. I mean, that was one of the problems
we used to have, is is so many people not
showing up for flights because we were have we would
have to allow about fifteen percent on average for people
not showing up for flights. Today, of course that's all
(24:11):
changed because you don't make a reservation, you buy a
ticket with rare exceptions, and so as a consequence, airlines
have much much higher load factors than they did in
those days, which affects prices. Affects prices in a big way.
(24:35):
But you know, on the other hand, in terms of technology,
while there have been a lot of changes, you know,
the airplane, as you can see on the cover, you
have airplanes on the cover that span thirty years, and
yet they all have wings because you need wings for
(25:00):
for lift. They have a body to carry your payload,
they have engines to propel the machine, and you have
a tail to balance it and steer it. So you know,
and that basic that doesn't go back to airline to regulation,
that goes back to orable right, and we haven't changed it.
(25:23):
And as you go forward, Yes, we may have supersonic flight.
I really think we will, and I think it's going
to be wonderful, but it's still going to be a
flying machine, and it's going to have to have those
basic factors together. I can mention one other thing too,
(25:46):
and that is that there's so much more entrepreneurial management
today than there were in those days, thanks to the
fact that we now have the government out of the business.
And today the government regulates safety, but it doesn't get
involved in the economics, or shouldn't get involved in the economics.
(26:07):
Of course, this administration has been a little different. Yes,
they have stuck their nose in. And I wrote an
op ed piece for the Wall Street Journal, in fact
that appeared two months ago on this exact subject.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Frank Lorenzo is our guest.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
The book is flying for peanuts, tough deals, steep bargains,
and revolution in the skies. We will continue our conversation
with him.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
The biggest problem is from within, no ability for the
oil industry to continue to drill period. Michael, Yes, the
sick radical people from within.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
He was, I said, Don cloudy and thence with the
Prima Isles line at gotta get down my hand and
the westin Oil can under my living chair.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Frank Lorenzo started many years ago. He's eighty four, started
many years ago putting deals together and ended up with
a small regional airline in more of a fledgling airline industry.
It's changed a lot since then, and then managed to
do some things that it hadn't been done an airline,
(27:34):
basically by another airline and gobbling those up and going.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Through the deregulation process.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I asked our listeners for their Frank Lorenzo moments, thoughts, anecdotes, criticisms, compliments,
and todd in the Woodlands, wrote Czar. The amazing thing
about Frank Lorenzo was that he guided Texas International slash
Continental through deregulation greater than in state rival Branif. Well,
(28:05):
that's the name that most people hadn't heard in a
long time. Harding Lawrence, who once worked for Continental ran
Branif and was the polar opposite of Frank Lorenzo. Frank
Lorenzo deserves enormous credit for making Continental a survivor and
having something left for your friend Gordon bethoone to build
upon years later. Well, that's a nice thing to have
(28:26):
somebody to say about you, Frank Lorenzo.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
That happens to be really spot on truth. I mean,
I hate to say it, it's sort of immodest of me,
but the writer of that letter really understood what was
going on. I look, I knew Harding Lawrence. Well, I
have some Harding Lawrence stories. I slept with him in
(28:51):
his apartment one time, so I can go on and
on about Harding Lawrence. But Harding just didn't understand what
was going on. He went the regulation hit. Instead of
focusing on his costs and focusing on his internal business,
he was out there expanding. He was acquiring roots into
(29:13):
the Pacific and so forth, which was nuts, and that's
what put him out of business. He wanted to acquire
us in nineteen seventy nine because we had a lot
of cash nineteen eighty and of course we weren't interested.
We were possibly interested in merging the airlines. And the
(29:35):
funny part about it is that he didn't want to
merge the airlines. He just wanted to merge with Texas Era,
where all the cash was.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Let me ask you this, Frank Lorenzo, is our guest.
The book is called Flying for Peanuts. I'm going to
ask the two different Frank Lorenzo's. I'm going to ask
twenty year old Frank Lorenzo and then eighty four year
old Frank Lorenzo. If I had asked twenty year old
Frank Lorenzo, if I said, look, you've been banned from aviation,
put that out of your mind. Find another industry to
(30:02):
to go chart your course? What would that have been?
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Well, let me just say, by the way, the Unions
has always peddled this business banned from the industry. I
was never banned from the industry. That was total. It
was an out and out lie. It isn't just in
the current political elections that there's out and out lies.
That was a total, total lie. I signed a contract
(30:29):
with SAS to sell our control position and continental and
as a standard in deals with this type, I had
a no compete clause for some number of years. I
think it was five or I think it was five years,
and that was it. I was never banned from the industry.
(30:52):
The DOT turned down an application under pressure from the
Unions when we were trying to start airline in nineteen
ninety three. After I left the small airline on the
East coast, and we got turned down because again it's
a whole political thing, which I can explain with more time.
(31:14):
But that was hardly of being banned from the industry.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
And I didn't mean to say that. But if you
had chosen at that age, what I meant to say is,
at that age i'd said you can't go into aviation,
what would you instead have gone into?
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Well? I looked at a number of other industries, by
the way, which is covered nicely in the book, including
the beer and banjo business, including other corporations. But I
had this love of aviation, of airlines. Even more than
just aviation was airlines. I just had this thing from
when I was fifteen and I took my first flight.
(31:51):
I just loved them. TWA was my favorite. In my book,
I show copies of letters that I got from TWA
where when I was sixteen and eighteen, i'd been applying
for jobs at TWA. When I was eighteen, they asked
me to come in for an interview, and then, of course,
(32:13):
by actually by coincidence, I end up working for t WA.
When I first came out of Harvard Business School, i'd
worked there for a couple a couple of a couple
of years. So I just I had I always had
this thing for airlines, and even today at eighty four,
(32:36):
I have to admit that, even though I've always said,
you know, I'm not going to do anything with aviation,
I'm going to stay away from airline stocks, that's actually
been both because I have. We took a major position
in United Airlines, in fact, because we really like the
way the company is being built. Bat Stock's done nicely.
(33:00):
We made an investment in a startup airline, So we
have done stuff in the aviation even these days. And
I keep my eye on what's going on, even at
eighty four.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
And let me ask you, I've got about a minute
and a half looking back now over your career, if
you say, what's an industry that now I realized maybe
I should have invested in, Maybe I would have liked
to have led that has turned out to be really
impressive that I didn't see coming.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Well, it wasn't even that we didn't see it coming,
but you didn't want to take the risk. Obviously we
would have done better had we just invested five years
ago in AI and anything related to it. And it
became a frenzy. You can't even come close to the
(33:47):
returns that have come to the companies that are there.
But as far as it, as far as the time
and true industry, airline investing has always been treacherous because
airlines do well and they don't do well. They're very
sensitive to fuel prices, They're very sensitive to the economy. Uh.
(34:12):
We used to we used to say that, uh, airlines
have all the all these sensitivities capital uh and so forth.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Frank Lorenzo, the book is Flying for Peanuts, tough Deals,
Steve bargains, and revolution in the Skies. I know there
are a lot of folks based on the emails I
have received, who lived through the transformative moments of how
(34:42):
we travel. You know, you think about airline travel and
how important it is to our lives today. That's why
nine to eleven use the airline as the tool. Because
terrorism is about a mental war, and when you can
shut people's airline in this down by pure fear, you
can shut down their economy now more than ever. How
(35:04):
many people do you know that Chris crossed the country
to see their kids because they're divorced, or to visit
their various offices It's incredible in such a short period
of time, how the world has shrunk, our world has shrunk.
How we're closer than ever because we can move around
so easily and so freely. The book again, Flying for
(35:26):
Peanuts by Frank Lorenzo, former Continental Airlines CEO.
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.