This is not the same airline you loved—or didn't love—a generation ago. Near the end, after all, Eastern was not known for happy employees or stellar customer service. The new Eastern, which started flying in May of last year, is a charter airline flying four Boeing 737s mainly on short routes from Miami to places like Havana, Camaguey, and Santa Clara, all in Cuba. It also flies several sports teams, including the NHL's Florida Panthers. From a business perspective, the new Eastern is no different than many companies you've never heard of, like Miami Air International or Omni Air International.

That may soon change. In 2011, this Eastern bought all the intellectual property from the old Eastern's bankruptcy estate—the logos and branding were worth more than $1 million—with their sights set on more than just charter flights. Ed Wegel, Eastern's CEO, hints that the company may launch a regular airline, perhaps with a hub in Miami, much like their gig 25 years ago. "It's something that we haven't made any final decisions on, but something we are leaning favorably towards doing," he tells Conde Nast Traveler. If Eastern takes the leap, Wegel says it will probably focus on Latin American and the Caribbean, two regions the airline cut before it folded in 1991, two years after filing for bankruptcy protection.

Founded in 1926, Eastern was once a powerhouse, taking advantage of airline regulation—until the late 1970s the government controlled what airlines flew which routes—to build busy hubs in New York, Atlanta, and Miami. But it struggled after de-regulation, and by the early 1990s, it was only the nation's eighth-largest airline, eclipsed by three brands still flying—United, Delta, and American. Even at its peak, however, it never matched the aura or global reach of Pan Am. "I never saw Eastern as being a particularly lovable carrier you wanted to bring back," says Brett Snyder, who runs the airline industry blog CrankyFlier. "But maybe it's nostalgic for the few people who have good memories of Eastern.”

The nostalgia-fueled numbers don't lie. Wegel, a former Eastern manager in the 1980s, says new management polled the brand's value and discovered travelers liked it so much that it could be worth $25 to $50 million annually in free advertising. The airline's logo (nicknamed the "hockey stick" because it looks like one) and paint job are nearly identical to what Eastern had before it folded, and Wegel says many airline industry insiders—often called aviation geeks—miss Eastern so much they sometimes show up at airports just to take pictures of its new planes. "Whenever we fly into a new city, it's all over the Internet," Wegel says. "There is a tremendous interest in this name because it affected so many people."