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Here's the story FTB Flying the Line II: Chapter 14 So Hank Duffy would receive a rough baptism in this first great crisis of his presidency, as he fought Lorenzo through a thicket of bankruptcy court decrees no other ALPA strike effort had ever encountered. In the long run, ALPA could claim a qualified victory in that Congress changed the bankruptcy law to prevent any future Lorenzo-style use of it for union-busting. But in the short run and as viewed from the trenches by striking Continental pilots, long-term victories were hard to appreciate.

Events that occurred in the first three weeks of the Continental strike almost foreordained its unhappy outcome. As we have seen, Continental’s dazed MEC told pilots to report to work “under duress” (whatever that meant), following the initial 72-hour bankruptcy shutdown. Lorenzo would not have been able to fly the schedule he planned if the Continental MEC had ordered a walkout from the start. When the Continental MEC belatedly initiated the strike three days later, on October 1, some pilots, accustomed by now to Lorenzo’s Emergency Work Rules, stayed in their cockpits. This group (about 75 pilots) would be joined by approximately 200 more crossovers in October. These “October scabs” would split almost evenly between former TXI and “old” Continental pilots. One of those “urban legends” that plagued the strike effort had a higher number of TXI pilots scabbing than “old” Continental pilots.

“It was quite common for the Continental pilots to believe the Texas guys were scabbing in greater numbers,” recalls Guy Casey, the steady ex-USAF pilot who served as strike coordinator. “I had access to all the records, I checked on it, and it just wasn’t true. I had to go around to all the bases where Continental pilots lived to tell them the percentages were basically the same.”

So, with these pilots (about 20 percent of the prestrike workforce, counting the relatively large contingent of management pilots pressed into service), Lorenzo would be able to fly, if only just barely, about 20 percent of his prestrike schedule, despite ALPA’s “job action.” If weather delays had burned up crew time, Lorenzo would have faced an early shutdown. But placid high pressure dominated October’s weather—a bad omen.

Lorenzo’s success in getting that first group of pilots to cross during the early days of the strike owed much to the skill that earned him the nickname “Frankie Smooth Talk.” Using a technique familiar to old TXI pilots, Lorenzo began to phone pilots personally. Armed with specific details about each pilot’s family situation, such as whether he had a wife or child who might be ill, Lorenzo could be a formidable salesman. Rather than threats, Lorenzo’s most effective tactic was to project a sense of concern, an earnestness that he really needed each pilot. Lorenzo had an undeniable gift for this kind of cajolery, as do all good salesmen. Lorenzo telephoned so many pilots, at all hours, that many wondered when he slept! It was devastatingly effective—Lorenzo’s verbal magic even persuaded one member of Continental’s MEC to cross!

“Look, Frank’s a savvy guy, and he can really be slick,” says Dennis Higgins, former TXI MEC chairman and veteran of many one-on-one confrontations with Lorenzo. “A guy would go home at night from the picket line a strong strike supporter, showing not a flaw in his defenses. The phone rings, and it’s Frank Lorenzo! The pilot sits there with his mouth wide open, and Frank says, ‘I want you to understand that I understand why you are doing what you’re doing. All I want is a chance to explain why we are doing what we are doing, and also to let you know that I need you badly and that I want you to come back so we can put this thing back together just exactly the way you have envisioned.’ Now if the guy hasn’t hung up by this point, he’s hooked! The next day, it’s like he’s kidnapped; we can’t find him, and somebody reports he’s crossed. Frank was good, you bet! The only defense was to say ‘Merry Christmas, Frank,’ and hang up before he started talking.”

Certain aspects of the modern airline pilot’s lifestyle also gave Lorenzo an advantage. Although no statistics exist to specifically prove it, a consensus of opinion holds that airline pilots tend to live up to the limit of their credit—and sometimes a little beyond. A lifestyle full of expensive toys, boats, and second homes left many Continental pilots “financially challenged.” Lorenzo had sources that allowed him to target these pilots with his phone calls—particularly the divorced.

“As soon as a guy’s captain bid comes out, he and his wife start looking for a captain’s house,” Dennis Higgins observes wryly. “Lots of guys were financed to the hilt, particularly those with second wives and new families. The wife would, in the privacy of the home, ask, ‘Are we going to have to move out of the house, take the kids out of the private school, deliver a car back to the bank?’ A pilot’s got to carry the uncertainty of the strike home to her and be able to justify it when the phone rings and she says, ‘It’s Frank Lorenzo!’”