The last time the world saw much of Martin Shugrue, he was talking about rebuilding a broken-down airline.

As the replacement for ousted Eastern Airlines chief Frank Lorenzo four years ago, Shugrue starred in television commercials telling employees how he would turn around Eastern and reverse its shrinkage.

These days he's saying many of the same things about the same broken-down airline.

He's trying to sell a majority stake in Eastern for $100 million. That's how much he figures it would cost to get the airline, which is still in bankruptcy court, flying as soon as October.

Shugrue is still the court-appointed trustee trying to raise money to pay the airline's debts. The creditors think Eastern has a better chance trying to make money as an airline than running a yard-sale of used planes and parts.

Shugrue has his eye on dusting off some of the 50 Eastern jets parked in the Mojave Desert and serving cities east of the Mississippi where he thinks Eastern can charge less than what passengers are paying now.

Unlike the flotilla of new airlines advertising lower fares, he's convinced this one can stand out from the crowd. With "The New Eastern Airlines" painted on the side, the upstart would have instant name recognition.

In the ads of 1990, Shugrue told employees gathered in an airplane hangar that Eastern was going to get a little better each of the next 100 days. "My staff has been saying it's more like the 100 million days," Shugrue said this past week in a joking reference to the cash he's trying to raise.

Those TV commercials made the balding, dark-eyed Shugrue about as recognizable as Lee Iacocca for those few months before the Persian Gulf War grounded worried travelers, draining Eastern's cash and leading to its shutdown.

Since then, Shugrue has sold about $1 billion worth of Eastern's assets to pay debts.

But with a glutted market for used airplanes, the banks and other creditors that wound up owning Eastern's jets came to Shugrue and suggested that he stop the selling and try to make the best of what's left.

Peddling used airline equipment is not the career that Shugrue, a pilot, set out on 26 years ago.

"I've spent my entire life building airlines rather than taking them apart. It hasn't been quite as exciting as building something and trying to move forward, but it hasn't been dull," Shugrue said in an interview.