Airline Exec Who Almost Saved Eastern and Pan Am Dies at 58

HOUSTON —  Martin R. Shugrue Jr., an airline executive who nearly rescued doomed Eastern Airlines and Pan Am during a lifetime in the industry, has died. He was 58.

Shugrue, who had worked with airline consulting firm Aviation Management Services in the last year, died Sunday at his home in Houston.

The Providence, R.I., native joined Pan American World Airways in 1968 after serving as a Navy pilot. A year later he went into management, fast ascending within the New York-based carrier’s ranks.

By 1983 he was elected vice chairman of Pan Am’s board, but he left five years later to become president of Houston-based Continental Airlines. After serving as trustee-in-bankruptcy of Eastern Airlines and nearly rescuing it in the early 1990s, Shugrue started the new Pan Am in 1996.

But the new version of Pan Am went the way of the old one, failing in 1998.

Shugrue is survived by his wife, Marianne, a former Pan Am flight attendant, and four children. He is also survived by his father, Martin R. Shugrue, of Providence, three sisters and two brothers.