Iacocca said he’s not interested in a full-time job. No problem: while Lee plays the public role in bringing back customers, the task of flying the carrier to profitability could rest with Gerald Greenwald. Greenwald, 57, was Chrysler’s vice chairman until 1990. And he knows plenty about airlines: after leaving Chrysler when Iacocca refused to designate a successor, he headed an unsuccessful union-backed effort to buy United Airlines. He’s also a director of the aircraft-leasing giant GPA Group-a useful connection for TWA, which urgently needs to modernize its ancient fleet.
Whether this dynamic duo would be able to turn the ailing airline around is something else again. TWA’s share of U.S. airline traffic has plunged and financier Carl Icahn, who once owned more than 80 percent of TWA, peddled most of its prized U.S.-London routes. Thus, no one is likely to invest without some prospect of short-term profit-and that means asking TWA’s 22,700 employees, who will own 45 percent of its shares, to accept dramatic wage cuts. TWA’s best hope of survival is to find a foreign partner-but steering the airline into a merger may not be the challenge Iacocca has in mind.
