It seems rather ironic that Eastern Airlines never actually flew to the Eastern Hemisphere. Of course, Eastern’s name came from its home turf, on the Eastern coast of the United States of America. However, by the time deregulation passed and the 1980’s rolled around, Eastern was flying to all four corners of the United States, as well as Europe, the Caribbean, and more cities in Latin America than any other airline at the time. But then again, what do you expect from the airline that carried more passengers than any other airline in the world until 1982? Furthermore, it seems logical that the largest airline in the world, would fly these routes with its most common aircraft, the Boeing 727. Eastern Airlines was at one point the largest operator of 727’s in the world, its fleet peaking at well over 180 aircraft in the early 1980s. By the mid to late 1980s, a fleet renewal program had retired over 50 older 727 airframes as 757’s, A300’s, and new DC-9-51’s joined the fleet. However, from the 727’s first flight with Eastern in 1963, until the airline’s final flight in 1991 the Boeing 727 was the ubiquitous symbol of Eastern’s vast route network.

     Now that we’ve gotten the history out of the way, on to the point of this article. By the end of this article you will be a master at flying Virtual Eastern Airlines’ 727’s across the Western Hemisphere… well, its really more like Eastern’s Hemisphere. We will go over two distinct kinds of flights that the 727 frequents throughout the Eastern network: long range, international flights, and short, point to point, mutli-city flights. Let’s start off with the longer international routes first.

     Picking a flight is no easy task at this virtual airline, especially once you get up into the higher ranks. There are so many flights to choose from, even if you are based out of a rather sparse pilot base. It’s a pretty easy bet that if you fly to Atlanta, the connections are endless, no matter what aircraft you are assigned. As for Eastern’s international 727 flights, you don’t need to look very hard. You can get to Mexico from Houston, Canada from New York, Puerto Rico from Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and of course, you can get anywhere from Eastern’s main international gateway at Miami. Eastern flies its 727’s to almost every island in the Caribbean from Miami, as well as down to Central and South America. Eastern’s routes down to South America are some of the most fun to fly out of any virtual airline around.

     Obviously we’re going to start our international 727 flight from Miami. But for those of you who aren’t based out of Miami, you can fly your 727 from just about every other pilot base Virtual Eastern offers, the only notable exception being all three New York airports, which fly strictly widebody equipment to Miami. So for you New York/Newark based pilots, a quick shuttle hop to DCA or BOS can solve your connection problem quickly. Once you get to Miami, you might want to catch up on some sleep, because this multi-leg flight down to South America leaves KMIA at 0030 local (that’s half past midnight). Flight 1370 is an all night, pitch black run down to Panama City, Panama (MPTO), one of Eastern’s main connecting points down to South America. All in all, your international leg will bring you from Miami to Asuncion, Paraguay via Panama City, Lima, and La Paz, totalling 4 legs and over 4000 miles flown. The leg breakdown is below:

     Leg 1.) 1370 KMIA-MPTO 0030-0200
     Leg 2.) 1371 MPTO-SPIM 0255-0600
     Leg 3.) 1369 SPIM-SLLP 0715-0950
     Leg 4.) 1368 SLLP-SGAS 1040-1230

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Eastern's Hemisphere, 1985

Eastern 727 in the Caribbean