1980 Travieso Pictorial View of Latin America, Eastern Air Lines

A vibrant c. 1984 promotional pictorial view of the Americas, drawn by Rubén Travieso for Eastern Air Lines to advertise their Inter-Americano Service. Aside from general promotional purposes, it was produced to highlight the airline's designation as the official Airline of Miami Carnival.

A Closer Look

Oriented towards the northeast, the view looks over South and Central America towards Florida and the airline's hub of Miami. An airplane at the top is laden with a colorful cast of characters traveling to Miami for Carnival. Walt Disney World and the new EPCOT Center beckon just to the north. Illustrations throughout the region represent its various countries and cultures, while hot air balloons with the flags of countries served by the airline float in the air (a conspicuous absence is Cuba).

Eastern Air Lines Inter-Americano Service

Eastern Air Lines' 'Inter-Americano Service' was a specialized division of the airline focused on routes connecting the United States, namely the airline's hub in Miami, with various destinations in Latin America. The airline had emerged in the late 1920s and 1930s through the combination of several pre-existing companies and was headed from the mid-1930s until the late 1950s by World War I Flying Ace Eddie Rickenbacker (1890 - 1973), who had become an aviation entrepreneur. Under his leadership, the company grew tremendously, gained profitable air mail contracts with the U.S. government, and established routes throughout the eastern U.S., becoming one of the premier American airlines by the late 1950s. The company maintained a terminal at Idyllwild Airport (later JFK) in New York City. It was designated the official airline of Disney World when it opened in 1971 and established an increasing number of international flights in the 1960s and 1970s. Still, Eastern faced financial troubles and, from the early 1970s, increasingly came under the leadership of former astronaut Frank Borman (1928 - 2023), the commander of the Apollo 8 mission. Borman's tireless leadership led the company to its most profitable years, but labor disputes, skyrocketing fuel prices, and airline deregulation badly hurt the company by the early 1980s.

Various efforts were made to turn the company's fortunes around, most of which were successful on their own merits but insufficient to rescue Eastern as a whole. The Inter-Americano service (not to be confused with an earlier Cuban airline of the same name) was one such example, a metonym for the airline's Latin American routes. By establishing a hub in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and acquiring the South American routes of Braniff Airlines in 1982, Eastern was able to greatly expand flights between Miami and multiple destinations in Central and South America. One point of pride was the food service on Inter-Americano flights, which featured dishes such as ceviche and corvina baked in banana leaves. Nevertheless, the airline continued to face financial troubles and was acquired piecemeal by rivals in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with American Airlines acquiring their Latin American routes. In recent years, attempts have been made to revive the company, in a sense, with its intellectual property and trademarks changing hands several times. Unfortunately, this revival appears to have been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Publication History and Census

This pictorial view was designed by Rubén Travieso and Pedro Astudillo and drawn by Travieso for Eastern Airlines. It is undated, but given the history of the Inter-Americano service and the gradual dissolution of the company later in the decade, it most likely dates to the early 1980s. At the same time, the first official Miami Carnival did not take place until 1984, suggesting a somewhat later date. We are unaware of the existence of this view in any institutional holdings and it is very scarce to the market.