When Rickenbacker was named Eastern's general manager, he wanted to make the airline independent of government subsidy. He began to build the airline by improving salaries, working conditions, maintenance and passenger service, and making stock options available to employees. A modest profit ($38,000) in 1935 proved the worth of the changes he had instituted. Ten new 14-passenger DC-2s, the beginning of 'The Great Silver Fleet,' were ordered to replace Stinsons, Condors, Curtiss Kingbirds and Pitcairn Mailwings. Rickenbacker co-piloted the first DC-2, Florida Flyer, on a record-setting flight from Los Angeles to Miami on November 8, 1934.

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Eastern at the end of 1934 was setting the pace for air transportation by flying passengers, mail and express on eight-hour nighttime schedules between New York and Miami and nine-hour schedules between Chicago and Miami to make connections with Pan American's system to South America and the Caribbean. In April 1938, Rickenbacker and several associates bought the airline for $3.5 million and he became its president and general manager. He promptly sat down and wrote a paper titled 'My Constitution,' which outlined 12 personal and business principles that would guide him in leading the airline. One of them was indicative of his work ethic: 'I will always keep in mind that I am in the greatest business in the world, as well as working for the greatest company in the world, and I can serve humanity more completely in my line of endeavor than in any other.'

A weather reporting and analysis system was inaugurated, and radio communications were improved. A reduction in fares brought an immediate increase in passenger traffic. The company became a bonded carrier, the first airline in the world to take such an action. It meant that goods entering the U.S. by air or surface craft could be transported by Eastern under bond for delivery to any city having a custom house. As Rickenbacker saw it, Eastern was the first airline to operate as a free-enterprise company — without government subsidy; for many years, it was the only one. In 1937, it was also the first airline to receive an award from the National Safety Council, after having operated for seven consecutive years (19301936) and flying more than 141 million passenger miles without a passenger fatality. However, that record ended in August 1937 with a fatal DC-2 crash at Daytona Beach.

On February 26, 1941, Rickenbacker's personal luck nearly ran out. He was aboard a DC-3 equipped as a sleeper that smashed into trees on an approach to Atlanta; 11 passengers and the two pilots died. For days Rickenbacker, badly injured, hovered between life and death, and it took nearly a year before he could get back to work. Some said that it was only Rickenbacker's cantankerous nature that pulled him through a difficult recovery. Afterward he slumped a little and walked with a slight limp.

In the journey from fighter ace to airline president, Rickenbacker's personality turned away some would-be admirers who found it hard to accept his brusqueness and caustic way of 'chewing out' subordinates — in private or before several hundred people. Rickenbacker could never get used to the idea of women working for an airline, especially as stewardesses. He preferred to hire male stewards because he believed they were less likely to leave the company soon after being trained. He worked a seven-day week himself, demanded that his employees work on Saturdays, and was a fanatic about punctuality and a penny-pincher when it came to company expenses. (He had to personally approve any expenditure over $50.)

But many of his associates thought his toughness was a sham and tried not to take his scathing comments too much to heart. He was always able to make instant, no-nonsense decisions, and he was fair and loyal to his employees, despite his acidic manner. Most important, he got results. He set his own annual salary at $50,000 in 1938, and it never changed over the next 25 years — despite the fact that he built the airline into one of the nation's four largest carriers during that time.

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