Trans World Airlines (TWA) was an American airline from 1925 until it was bought out by and merged with American Airlines in 2001. It was a major airline in the United States and the main U.S.-based competitor of Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) on intercontinental routes from 1946 until deregulation in 1978. TWA had hubs at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport and focus cities in Kansas City, Los Angeles, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In the 1980s it built a hub in Atlanta, reduced in the 1990s. TWA had pilot bases in Frankfurt and Berlin during the 1980s and it operated Boeing 727-100 type aircraft within Europe. The company flew intra-European routes between Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Zurich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Vienna, Amsterdam and Istanbul.
Flying to most major U.S. cities, TWA was one of the largest domestic airlines; before deregulation TWA, American Airlines, United Airlines, and Eastern Air Lines were known as the "Big Four". It also had a feeder operation from smaller cities in the Midwestern United States. Beyond the U.S., TWA had a large European and Middle Eastern network, served from its hub, the iconic TWA Flight Center, at John F. Kennedy International Airport. For a few years its routes circumnavigated the globe. It was a secondary unofficial flag carrier for the United States, especially after Pan Am was dissolved in the early 1990s
TWA's corporate history dates from the July 16, 1930, forced merger of Transcontinental Air Transport (T-A-T) and Western Air Express to form Transcontinental & Western Air (T&WA). The companies merged at the urging of Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown, who was looking for bigger airlines to give airmail contracts.
Both airlines brought high-profile aviation pioneers who would give the airline the panache of being called "The Airline Run by Flyers." The airlines would be known for several years as being on the cutting edge of aviation. Transcontinental, the bigger of the two, had the marquee expertise of Charles Lindbergh and was already offering a 48-hour combination of plane and train trip across the United States. Western, which was slightly older having been founded in 1925, had the expertise of Jack Frye.
On October 25, 1930, the airline offered one of the first all-plane scheduled service from coast to coast: the Lindbergh Route. The route took 36 hours and initially called for overnights in Kansas City. In summer 1931, TWA moved its headquarters from New York to Kansas City, Missouri.
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In 1931, the airline nearly went out of business after TWA Flight 599, a Fokker F.10, shed a wing and crashed on March 31 near Bazaar, Kansas, killing all eight on board the plane, including University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. Investigation revealed that the wing's wooden structure had deteriorated, leading it to fail. In the wake of the crash, the Fokker F.10 was temporarily grounded, and a more frequent and rigorous inspection and maintenance regime was put in place, making it more expensive to operate. The F.10's public image, and that of all wooden-structured aircraft, also suffered badly from the crash. TWA needed a replacement.
Experimental TWA test aircraft
The dominant manufacturer of the day was Bill Boeing but his contract with United Air Lines did not allow him to sell his 247 to competing lines. Frye and other members of TWA approached several other manufacturers, including Donald Douglas, with specifications for a larger plane. On September 20, 1932 the contract was signed with Douglas and the DC-1 was delivered to TWA in December 1933, the one and only DC-1. This was followed by the delivery of 32 Douglas DC-2 aircraft that started operations in May 1934. Most were phased out by 1937 as the DC-3 started service, but several DC-2 would be operational through the early years of WWII.[7] Throughout 1934 Tomlinson and Richter tested the DC-1, and Tomlinson's extensive testing in 1934 and 1935 led to higher-altitude "over-weather flying" and cabin pressurization.
On February 18, 1934, the top-scoring American World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker and a TWA team including Frye, "Tommy" Tomlinson, Larry Fritz, Paul E. Richter, Si Morehouse, Harlan Hull, John Collings, and Andy Andrews flew the DC-1 from Burbank, California to Newark, New Jersey in a record-breaking 13 hours and 4 minutes.
Eddie Rickenbacker
Lehman Brothers/Hertz ownership: T&WA, Inc.
In 1934, following charges of favoritism in the contracts, the Air Mail scandal erupted, leading to the Air Mail Act of 1934 which dissolved the forced Transcontinental and Western merger and ordered the United States Army Air Service to deliver the mail. The T&WA name, however, would stick with Transcontinental as TWA. With the company facing financial hardship, Lehman Brothers and John D. Hertz took over ownership of the company.
The Army fliers had a series of crashes, and it was decided to privatize the delivery with the provision that no former companies could bid on the contracts. T&WA added the suffix "Inc." to its name, thus qualifying it as a different company and got 60 percent of its old contracts back starting again in May 1934.
On May 18, 1934, the DC-2 production version of the DC-1 and forerunner of the DC-3 entered commercial service on TWA's Columbus–Pittsburgh–Newark route. On August 1 TWA started a three-stop transcontinental flight: leave Newark at 1600, arrive Glendale at 0700, fare $160 one way (approx $ 2,227 today). All transcontinental airline flights made at least three stops en route until 1946.
On December 27, 1934, Jack Frye became President, Paul E. Richter, Vice Pres., Walt Hamilton, V.P. Maintenance with managers Lawrence G. "Larry" Fritz, and Tommy Tomlinson, the leader in "High Altitude Research" for Over Weather Flying. The new owners installed directional "homing" and runway lights at its facilities.
Jack Frye, Pres. Paul Richter, Vice Pres. Walt Hamilton, V.P MX Larry Fritz, Manager Tommy Tomlinson, Manager
In 1935 Tomlinson and Northrop Gamma (turbo-supercharged) began High Altitude research, and the last of 14 TWA Northrop Alphas were phased out. On November 16, 1936, Richter headed the airline's Boeing 307 talks; on January 29, 1937, TWA contracted with Boeing for five Boeing 307 "Stratoliners," the first commercial plane with a pressurized cabin. The first TWA Stratoliner was delivered on May 6, 1940.
In 1938, Richter was elected Executive Vice President, Lawrence G. "Larry" Fritz became Vice Pres. of Operations, and Tomlinson Vice Pres. of Engineering. TWA subsequently received the San Francisco to Chicago route (via Los Angeles).
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Howard Hughes
In 1938, Lehman and Hertz began selling their interest and General Motors began buying stock. Frye then approached another flying enthusiast, Howard Hughes, to buy stock. According to John Keats's biography of Hughes, he grumbled, "$15 million! That's a small fortune!" before he agreed and initially bought 25 percent of the airline.
On June 22, 1939, Hughes Tool Co. ordered 40 Lockheed Constellations. On July 8, 1940, TWA inaugurated Boeing 307 Stratoliner service; in summer 1941 a Stratoliner was scheduled to leave La Guardia at 2030 EST and arrive Burbank at 0838 PST after three stops.
1940s
World War II
Hughes gained a controlling interest in 1941 and eventually controlled 78 percent of TWA. The airline prospered during World War II, racking up 40 million miles in flights for the Army, as well as supplying the North Atlantic route to Prestwick, Scotland, and the South Atlantic route from Brazil to Liberia and points east.
Hughes pushed for the construction of the Lockheed Constellation commercial airliner, which would become synonymous with the TWA style of elegance and cutting-edge technology. On April 17, 1944, Hughes and Frye flew the Constellation (C-69 USAAF #43-10310) from Burbank, California, to Washington, D.C., in an unofficial record 6 hours 58 minutes.
Post-war, The Trans World Airline
After breaking Pan American World Airways' legal designation as the United States' sole international carrier, TWA began trans-Atlantic service in 1946 using DC-4s and the elegant new Lockheed Constellation ("Connie"); soon its name was changed to The Trans World Airline. Flights reached Cairo in 1946, Bombay in January 1947, Ceylon in February 1953, and Manila in January 1958; two 1049Gs a week reached Manila 55–56 hours after leaving Idlewild. The route was cut back to Bangkok in a year or two and to Bombay in 1961. In 1966 it re-extended to Hong Kong via Bangkok, then in 1969 TWA opened the trans-Pacific link to complete its round the world network that lasted until 1975.
The airline assisted in the setting-up of Saudi Arabian Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, and the newly established German national airline Lufthansa. Airlines from around the world sent their pilots to TWA for training.
Falling out between Hughes and Frye
Frye and Hughes had a falling out in 1946. Hughes' financial advisor Noah Dietrich said that Frye was ruining the company with overexpansion. TWA's stock market price plunged from $53 a share to $10 as the airline suffered a pilot's strike and a temporary grounding of its Constellation fleet. Hughes dictated to management a 50% cut across the board as a solution to the financial problems. In December 1946, Hughes loaded the TWA Board of Directors with men from the Hughes Tool Co. Frye resigned in February 1947, followed three months later by Richter. Thus ended the era of "The Airline Run by Flyers."
During the next two decades TWA suffered constant changes in management, with the exception of Ralph Damon. TWA survived partly due to the airline's legal maneuvering of the 1940s that eliminated a possible competitive threat from American Overseas Airlines, affiliated with American Airlines. C.R. Smith, President of American, unhappy with the AOA's financial results, sold AOA to Pan American in 1950, leaving TWA and Pan Am as the only U.S. airlines that flew to Europe until the 1970s.
1950s: Trans World Airlines
The TWA Corporate Headquarters' Building in Kansas City, Missouri with TWA Moonliner II atop its southwest corner from 1956-62 replicating the TWA Moonliner Tomorrowland attraction at Disneyland
In 1950, the airline officially changed its name to Trans World Airlines. Between 1954 and 1958 it moved its executive offices from its landmark downtown Kansas City building to New York City. However, the servicing of the fleet continued to be handled in Kansas City, Kansas. Initially, servicing was at a former B-25 Mitchell bomber factory at Fairfax Airport. When the Great Flood of 1951 destroyed the facility, the city of Kansas City, Missouri built TWA a 5,000-acre (20 km2) airport on farmland 15 miles (24 km) north of downtown at what became Kansas City International Airport. At its peak, the airline was one of Kansas City's biggest employers with more than 20,000 employees. TWA also became well regarded by Hollywood movie stars and executives and became known as the "Airline To The Stars."
In the 1950s the TWA Moonliner was the tallest structure at Disneyland and depicted atomic-powered travel to come in 1986.
TWA suffered from its late entry to the jet age and in 1956 Hughes placed an order for 63 Convair 880s at a cost of $400 million. The transaction ultimately resulted in Hughes losing control of the airline because outside creditors financing the deal did not want Hughes controlling both development and operation of aircraft.
In 1958 TWA became the first major airline to hire an African-American flight attendant, hiring Margaret Grant after another African-American woman, Dorothy Franklin of Astoria, Queens, New York, filed a lawsuit alleging "that she had been discriminated against 'because of poor complexion ... unattractive teeth' and legs that were 'not shapely.'" New York governor W. Averell Harriman praised her hiring, saying the action "would raise American prestige abroad."
1960s
On July 19, 1961, TWA was the first airline to introduce regular in-flight movies aboard its aircraft when it offered the feature film By Love Possessed, starring Lana Turner and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in the first-class section of a Boeing 707 during a scheduled flight from New York City to Los Angeles.
Charles C. Tillinghast Jr.
Hughes formally relinquished power in 1961 in the battle over the purchase of the Convair 880 jetliners. In the deal, Charles C. Tillinghast Jr. became chairman and oversaw the airline until 1976. The battle over Hughes' control continued until a court order in 1966 forced Hughes to sell his stock at a profit of $546 million (which he used to purchase the regional carrier Air West and rename the airline Hughes Airwest).
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Under new corporate management, the Trans World Corporation (TWA's holding company) expanded to purchase the overseas operations of Hilton Hotels. In 1964, TWA initiated a program to assist in the United States' export expansion effort that became known as the TWA MarketAir Corporate Logo to promote business passenger air travel and as a marketing tool to be used in air cargo sales. This marketing effort was initiated by the Senior Vice President, Marketing, Thomas B. McFadden in collaboration with the Bureau of International Commerce, important U.S. financial institutions, and export expansion entities to offer tools that small and medium size U.S. companies could use at low or no cost to expand their exports. A key element of this program was the MarketAir Newsletter in a number of languages targeted to American exporters and international travelers Journal of Commerce, August 31, 1965, and Travel Magazine, September, 1965.
TWA was one of the first airlines in the world to embrace the spoke-hub distribution method and also was one of the first airlines to use the Boeing 747. It planned to use the 747 along with the anticipated supersonic transport to whisk people between the West/Midwest (via Kansas City) and New York City (via John F. Kennedy International Airport) to European and other world destinations. As part of this strategy, TWA's hub airports were to be designed so that gates would be close to the street. However, the TWA-style airport design proved impractical and costly when Cuban hijackings in the late 1960s, followed by more sinister and deadly Mideast hijackings, required central security checkpoints.
In 1962, TWA opened Trans World Flight Center, now known as Terminal 5 (or simply T5), at New York City's JFK Airport and designed by Eero Saarinen. The terminal was expanded in 1969 to accommodate Jumbo Jets, went dormant in 2001, and underwent renovation and expansion beginning in 2005. A new terminal with a crescent-shaped entry hall and now serving JetBlue Airways opened in 2008—partially encircling the historic landmark.
Kansas City International Airport
Kansas City approved a $150 million bond issue for the TWA hub there. TWA vetoed plans for a Dulles International Airport-style hub-and-spoke gate structure. Following union strife, the airport ultimately cost $250 million when it opened in 1972, with U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew officiating. TWA's gates, which were conceived of being within 100 feet (30 m) of the street, were likewise to become obsolete because of security issues. Kansas City refused to rebuild its terminals as Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport rebuilt its similarly designed terminals, forcing TWA to look for a new hub. Missouri politicians moved to keep it in the state, and in 1982, TWA began a decade-long move to Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, Missouri.
All-jet fleet
On April 7, 1967, TWA became one of the USA's first all-jet airlines with the retirement of their last Lockheed L-749A Constellation and L-1649 Starliner cargo aircraft. That morning throughout the TWA system, aircraft ground service personnel placed a booklet on every passenger seat titled "Props Are For Boats."
TWA operated Boeing single-aisle jets in the 1960s.
In 1967-72 TWA was the world's third-largest airline by passenger-miles, behind Aeroflot and United. In 1969 TWA carried the most transatlantic passengers of any airline; until then Pan American World Airways had always been number one. In the Transpacific Route Case of 1969 TWA was given authority to extend its route network across the Pacific to Hawaii and Taiwan.
In 1969 TWA opened the Breech Academy on a 25-acre (100,000 m2) campus in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kansas, to train its flight attendants, ticket agents, and travel agents, as well as to provide flight simulators for its pilots. It became the definitive airline facility, training other airlines staff as well as its own.
The airline continued to expand European operations through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In 1987 TWA could boast of a trans-Atlantic system that stretched from Los Angeles to Bombay, including virtually every major European population center, with ten gateways from the United States.
1970's
TWA, when it retired the Constellation fleet in 1967, became the first U.S. airline to boast an all-jet fleet. At the end of 1969, TWA’s fleet consisted of 232 airplanes: 124 B-707s, 64 B-727s, 25 CV-880/890s, and 19 DC-9s. And that fleet would grow. On Feb. 25, 1970, the carrier inaugurated B-747 service from Los Angeles to New York, becoming the first to offer any B-747 service in the United States. Two years later, on June 25, 1972, TWA began L-1011 service and flew the first flight, St. Louis to Los Angeles, on autopilot from takeoff to landing.
But the 1970s were not to be all golden. Along with the rest of the airline industry, TWA would experience hijackings, which began in 1968; the ill effects of an economic downturn; the oil embargo of 1973 to 1979; labor strife; and the deregulation of the U.S. airline industry, which over a prolonged period would change the face and character of air travel.
The airline industry and particularly the pilots were fighting an uphill battle to overcome the menace of hijacking, which by 1972 had reached 160 recorded U.S. airplane hijackings. They started as political hijackings, with most destined for Cuba. TWA had three airplanes commandeered and directed to Cuba during 1968 and 1969.
Worse was yet to come—terrorist hijackings, which had been renamed "skyjackings." On Aug. 29, 1969, a commando unit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) skyjacked TWA Flight 840 enroute from Rome to Athens. An armed duo ordered Capt. Dean Carter, First Officer Harry Oakley, and Second Officer Hobart Tomlinson to fly to Damascus. Once there, the terrorists released the passengers and crew and blew up the airplane. A few weeks later, the PFLP hit again, taking six airliners. Terrorists took over TWA Flight 741, a B-707 flying from Tel Aviv to New York, and directed it to land in the desert near Amman, Jordan. Three other hijacked airplanes were forced to the same point. In all, 595 passengers and crew members were kept aboard their airplanes for some time, until removed, and then the skyjackers blew up all the airplanes.
TWA Capt. Tom Ashwood, as an ALPA national officer, was highly instrumental in the U.S. and international effort to solve the hijacking menace. The United States finally passed the Antihijacking Act of 1974, which put into effect many of the security measures still used today.
Although the fear of being skyjacked may have deterred some air travelers, the real cause of low load factors during the 1970s was the depressed economy and severe fuel shortages, coupled with overcapacity. Interestingly, the introduction of the B-747 at such a financially precarious time was reminiscent of TWA’s introduction of its DC-1 during the Depression. TWA’s fleet of 232 jets, coupled with delivery of widebody jets at a time when many small carriers and fleets were being restructured or established, helped create tremendous overcapacity and traffic stagnation as the traveling public was sharply reducing its air travel.
The carrier’s bottom line began to get worse, and TWA pilots suffered heavy furloughs—700 pilots were on the street at the end of 1971, a number reduced by only 123 by 1974. Looking for a way out of its financial hole, TWA exchanged routes with Pan Am in 1974 and dropped its around-the-world service along with some other routes.
By 1976, the carrier had financially begun to reach level flight and recalled all its furloughed pilots; but the pilot hiring hiatus that began in 1970 lasted until 1978, when the airline hired 12 pilots.
The next year, 1979, the air carrier’s identity started to become clouded as it became part of a new order: The Trans World Corporation was formed and included Canteen Corporation, Hilton International (bought in 1967), Spartan Food Service, and Century 21 Real Estate.
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1980s
Facing the pressures of deregulation, the airline began to consolidate its route system around a domestic hub in Saint Louis (aided by its purchase of Ozark Air Lines in 1986) and an international gateway in New York. It was able to remain profitable during this time because of its good pre-deregulation route positioning and the relatively low costs of adapting its operations. In 1985, Carl Icahn bought the 
airline operations from the Trans World Corporation and appointed himself as chairman of the newly independent airline. Also in 1985, TWA closed their hub at Pittsburgh International Airport after nearly 20 years of a hub status.
TWA had pilot bases in many European cities such as Berlin, Frankfurt, Zurich, Rome, and Athens. These bases were used to provide crews for the Boeing 727s which TWA operated in its European route network. Its Boeing 727 aircraft served Cairo, Athens, Rome, London, Paris, Geneva, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Zurich, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Istanbul.
In 1989 TWA decided to replace its fleet of Boeing 727 Series 100 aircraft with the former Ozark DC-9s. This decision was based on the economics of operating three-pilot airplanes (B-727s) with three engines, versus operating two-pilot airplanes (DC-9s) with two engines. Both airplanes had approximately the same passenger and cargo capacity, so it was decided to replace the Boeing fleet. In order to prepare for this transition, TWA positioned several million dollars worth of spare parts for the DC-9s in Germany. This was a requirement dictated by the German government. If TWA wanted to use DC-9s in the service of the German population, then TWA had to provide readily available spare parts for its fleet. The airline also sent its senior DC-9 pilots (known as Check Airmen) to Europe to observe the operations in preparation for the changeover of the crews that was to follow. Shortly before the DC-9 airplanes began arriving in Germany, however, the entire plan was canceled because the leasing contracts that Carl Icahn had created for the former Ozark DC-9s specifically forbade any operations outside of the continental limits of the United States.
In 1987 Icahn moved the company's main offices from Manhattan, New York City to office buildings he owned in Mount Kisco.
Carl Icahn
TWA's zenith occurred in the summer of 1988, when, for the only time, the airline would carry more than 50 percent of all trans-Atlantic passengers. Every day, Boeing 747, Lockheed L-1011, and Boeing 767 aircraft would depart to more than 30 cities in Europe, fed by a small but effective domestic operation focused on moving U.S. passengers to New York or other gateway cities for widebody service across the Atlantic, while a similar inter-European operation would shuttle non-U.S. passengers to TWA's European gateways - London, Paris (which was even considered a European hub by TWA) and Frankfurt - for travel to the United States. Icahn's pressing needs for additional capital forced him to sell the airline's Heathrow operations to American Airlines at about the same time that Pan American World Airways sold its Heathrow operation to United Airlines.
1992 bankruptcy
Tillinghast ignored the trans-Pacific market and the dedicated air cargo market. He was reported to have said, "There's no money in the Pacific and there's no money in cargo. We're gonna' shrink this airline 'til it's profitable." These two oversights are said to have been the undoing of TWA.
Airline deregulation hit TWA hard in the 1980s. TWA had badly neglected domestic U.S. expansion at a time when the newly deregulated domestic market was growing at an exponential rate. TWA's holding company, Trans World Corporation, spun off the airline, which then became starved for capital. The airline briefly considered selling itself to renowned corporate raider Frank Lorenzo in the 1980s, but ended up selling to yet another corporate raider Carl Icahn in 1985. Under Icahn's direction, many of its most profitable assets were sold to competitors, much to the detriment of TWA. Icahn was eventually ousted in 1993, though not before the airline was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1992. Icahn emerged unscathed. TWA moved its headquarters from Mt. Kisco to the former headquarters building of McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis soon after Icahn left.
1995 bankruptcy
When Carl Icahn left in 1993, he arranged to have TWA give Karabu Corp., an entity he controlled, the rights to buy TWA tickets at 45 percent off published fares through September 2003. This was named "The Karabu Deal." The ticket program agreement, which began on June 14, 1995, excluded tickets for travel which originated or terminated in St. Louis, Missouri. Tickets were subject to TWA's normal seat assignment and boarding pass rules and regulations, were non-assignable to any other carrier, and were non-endorsable. No commissions were paid to Karabu by TWA for tickets sold under the ticket program agreement.
At its heyday TWA operated a fleet of 747-100 aircraft
By agreement dated August 14, 1995, Lowestfare.com LLC, a wholly owned operating subsidiary of Karabu, was joined as a party to the ticket program agreement. Pursuant to the ticket program agreement, Lowestfare.com could purchase an unlimited number of system tickets. System tickets are tickets for all applicable classes of service which were purchased by Karabu from TWA at a 45 percent discount from TWA's published fare. In addition to system tickets, Lowestfare.com could also purchase domestic consolidator tickets, which are tickets issued at bulk fare rates and were limited to specified origin/destination city markets and did not permit the holder to modify or refund a purchased ticket. Karabu's purchase of domestic consolidator tickets was subject to a cap of $70 million per year based on the full retail price of the tickets.
On most TWA flights, Karabu could buy at a heavy discount and then sell a certain portion of all TWA's available seats. As a result, TWA was hamstrung by the high proportion of heavily discounted seats that had been pre-sold and was essentially left with no control over its own pricing. It could not afford to discount any of its own seats, and if TWA wanted to increase revenue on busy routes by putting a larger plane into service, Karabu would only claim more seats. It is estimated TWA was losing around $150 million a year in revenue with this deal.
In trying to ameliorate the Karabu deal, TWA went in and out of bankruptcy in 1995.
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Short turn-around
By 1998, TWA had reorganized as a primarily domestic carrier, with routes centered on hubs at St. Louis and New York. Partly in response to TWA Flight 800 and the age of its fleet, TWA announced a major fleet renewal, ordering 125 new aircraft. TWA paid for naming rights for the new Trans World Dome, home of the St. Louis Rams, in its corporate hometown.[citation needed] In June 1994 its headquarters moved to One City Centre in Downtown St. Louis.
TWA's fleet renewal program included adding newer and smaller, more fuel-efficient longer-range aircraft such as the Boeing 757 and 767 and short-range aircraft such as the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 and Boeing 717. Aircraft such as the Boeing 727 and 747, along with the Lockheed L-1011 and older DC-9s, some from Ozark and the 1960s, were retired. TWA also became one of the early customers for the Airbus A318 through International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC). TWA, had it continued operating through 2003, would have been the first U.S. carrier to fly the type.
International code-share agreements with Royal Jordanian Airlines, Kuwait Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Air Europa, and Air Malta. In 1997, a code-share agreement was signed with Air Ukraine with plans to begin service between Paris and Kiev by 1999. Domestic code-share with America West Airlines was started, with long-term plans for a merger considered. However, the 1995 Karabu ticketing deal with Icahn proved to be an obstacle.
The routes that TWA flew were also changed. Several international destinations were dropped or changed, and the focus of the airline became domestic and a small number of international routes through its St. Louis hub and smaller New York (JFK) and San Juan, Puerto Rico hubs. Domestically, the carrier improved services with redesigned aircraft and new services, including "Pay in Coach, Fly in First," where passengers could be upgraded to first class from coach when flying through St. Louis. Internationally, services were cut. European destinations eventually were limited to London, and Paris; and in the Middle East, to Cairo, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv.
William Compaton, TWA's final CEO (and MD80 Captain)
2000s
TWA stated that it planned to make Los Angeles a focus city around October 2000, with a partnership with American Eagle Airlines as part of Trans World Connection.
Merger with American Airlines
Financial problems began to resurface shortly afterward, and Trans World Airlines Inc. assets were acquired in April 2001 by AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines, who quickly formed a new company called TWA Airlines LLC. As part of the deal, TWA declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy (for the third time) the day after it agreed to the purchase. The terms of the deal included a $500 million payment. The total value of TWA's assets and assumed liabilities was estimated to be 2 billion. American did not claim the naming rights for the Rams' home, which eventually became the Edward Jones Dome.
TWA booking ended on November 30, 2001.
TWA Airlines LLC flew its last flight on December 1, 2001 with an MD-80 aircraft (N948TW). The ceremonial last flight was Flight 220 from Kansas City, Missouri, to St. Louis, with CEO Captain William Compton at the controls. The final flight before TWA officially became part of American Airlines was completed between St. Louis and Las Vegas, Nevada, also on December 1, 2001. At 10:00 p.m. CST on that date, employees began removing all TWA signs and placards from airports around the country, replacing them with American Airlines signs. At midnight, all TWA flights officially became listed as American Airlines flights. Some aircraft carried hybrid American/TWA livery during the transition, with American's tricolor stripe on the fuselage and TWA titles on the tail and forward fuselage. Signage still bears the TWA logo in portions of Concourse D at Lambert St. Louis International Airport. On some MD-80 aircraft, the cabinets retain TWA logos.
American Airlines acquired some Ambassadors Clubs, and other Ambassadors Clubs closed on December 2, 2001.
One lit TWA sign still exists (as of 2013) on the east side of Saarinen's TWA Flight Center terminal facing the JetBlue's Terminal 5. JetBlue will keep the lit TWA sign on the TWA Flight Center.
TWA's St. Louis hub decreased after the merger due to its proximity to American's larger hub at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. As a result, American initially replaced TWA's St. Louis mainline hub with regional jet service (going from over 800 operations a day to just over 200) and downsized TWA's maintenance base in Kansas City. In September 2009, American Airlines announced its intent to shut down the STL hub it inherited from TWA, and in October 2009, American Airlines announced its intent to close the Kansas City maintenance base by September 2010.
AMR Corp. merger with US Airways Group
On 14 February 2013, American Airlines and US Airways announced that the two companies would merge in a deal that will form the largest airline in the world. In the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter of 2013, shareholders of American Airlines' parent AMR will own 72% of the new company and US Airways shareholders will own the remaining 28%. The combined airline will carry the American Airlines name, while US Airways' management team, including CEO Doug Parker, will retain most operational management positions. The headquarters for the new airline will also be consolidated at American's current headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. On March 27, 2013 American Airlines federal bankruptcy judge approved the merger with US Airways but denies $20M severance deal for American Airlines CEO Tom Horton. The merged livery choices could be a combination of America West, US Airways, American Airlines and TWA according to Doug Parker but will be decided at a later date with employee input. The remaining TWA MD-83s will be removed from service around 2018 according to Doug Parker. Former TWA pilots and TWA flight attendants now with American are trying to get original hire date with TWA seniority restored before merger is completed. In an interview with The Fort Worth Star Telegram, APFA President Laura Glading admitted APFA made a “mistake” and “screwed-up big time” by stapling the TWA members to the bottom of the seniority list. Ms. Glading has done nothing to remedy that mistake. It is still unknown how the merger will affect retired Trans World Airlines Inc. workers.
Pilot and Flight attendant Seniotiry Integration during merger;
Pilot Seniority Integration
The 2,500 most senior AA pilots were put at the top of the combined list. Then about 1,000 TWA pilots were folded into the remaining American Airlines pilots at the ratio of one TWA pilot for about every nine American pilots hired before the merger. The last 1,250 or so TWA pilots were stapled to the bottom of the combined seniority list.
During the post 9/11 furloughs, the TWA pilots constituted the bulk of the furloughed pilots within the merged seniority list placing them at the bottom of the comblined group.
One protection TWA pilots had, in a contract addendum known as Supplement CC, said they were protected at their home base of St. Louis. But American now wants to close the St. Louis base, and the St. Louis pilots would be integrated into the general seniority list with a lot less relative seniority. If this takes place, there will be a number of captains who my be displaced to first officer, along with a number of FO's getting displaced from a line holder to a reserve pilot.
American and APA agreed in a new contract adopted last year that they would submit the question of what to do with the St. Louis pilots, how they will exercise their seniority and Supplement CC to binding arbitration.
Flight Attendant Seniority Integration
After American Airlines bought the assests of TWA out of Chaptaer 11, the TWA flight attendants were essentially "stapled" to the bottom of the American Airlines Senioirty list. Flight attendants with 30 plus years of service were put under newly hired flight attendants who had just completed training prior to the merger. To be clear, the TWA flight attendants retained their longevity in respect to pay, but not with regards to bidding their base and schedules.
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ST LOUIS MAGAZINE / OCTOBER 2005 / TWA - DEATH OF A LEGEND
TWA - Death Of A Legend
BY ELAINE X. GRANT
TWA was the Marilyn Monroe of the airlines: an American icon done in by powerful men who wanted a piece of its magic. Glamorous, tragic, gone before its time.
And even though TWA’s demise didn’t involve pills or rumors of mob involvement, it was every bit as controversial as Marilyn’s suicide.
Ask any ex-staffer what went wrong with the airline, and you’ll get one answer: Carl Icahn, the corporate raider who took over TWA in 1985 and systematically stripped it of its assets.
It’s easy to pin the blame on Icahn. But as glorious as TWA’s image was, its history was rife with missteps, misfortunes and miscreants.
TWA was born in 1930 when Transcontinental Air Transport merged with Western Air Express. In 1939, legendary Leonardo DiCaprio vessel Howard Hughes gained control of the airline. Already a famed aviator, tycoon and playboy, Hughes was asked to invest in TWA by its president, Jack Frye, a universally respected pilot who had run the airline since 1934.
Hughes would own TWA for the next 27 years—without ever holding an official position. At first, TWA was thrilled to have him at the helm. He brought to the table glittering celebrities, a true aviator’s love of flying, and money, money, money. But he also brought the eccentric behavior that foreshadowed his descent into an obsessive- compulsive prison years later.
Fiercely secretive and famously indecisive, Hughes was the millstone that kept TWA from staying at the front of the high-stakes jet race. He loved jets and wanted TWA to be one of the first airlines to have them—but, as with everything else, it had to be done on his terms. In the mid-1950s, when United, American and Pan Am placed large orders for the latest jets, Hughes wouldn’t allow TWA to follow suit. He eventually ordered eight short-range Boeing 707s through his Hughes Tool Co. but cagily told TWA that the airline would have no rights to them. (Indeed, he had been known to keep a TWA plane on hand for his personal use for months at a time despite his top executives’ entreaties for its return to service.) “Eight domestic Boeings, while better than none, were not sufficient to preserve TWA’s markets against the forthcoming onslaught by American and United,” wrote longtime TWA executive Robert Rummel in Howard Hughes and TWA.
Finally Hughes ordered 18 international Boeings and 30 Convair 880s, and it seemed that TWA might be back in the game. But with the Convair order Hughes found himself nearing the end of his financial resources. He began playing games with the manufacturer—refusing delivery of planes, sending his own inspectors to place them under armed guard, preventing TWA inspectors and Convair workers from boarding, even blocking test flights—in a bid to delay payment.
TWA was in desperate need of money, but no bank would give the airline a cent as long as Hughes was still in the picture. “We were subject to very stiff interest penalties as a result of Hughes’ involvement,” says Jerry Cosley, who held several executive and staff positions with TWA from 1960 to 1985. “He was a genius in many aspects of aviation, but he maintained a very spotty record of financial achievement.”
In 1960, with TWA facing bankruptcy, Hughes finally gave up control of the airline. Six years later, he would sell his TWA stock. (TWA eventually filed two lawsuits against Hughes. After more than 25 years of litigation, the airline won one and lost the other, pocketing damages of almost $50 million.)TWA began to gain ground, but more trouble was on the way. “TWA after Howard Hughes was really run by a group of people who never believed in the airline industry,” says Don Casey, who joined TWA’s marketing department in 1968. “What did they do with any money they got? They went out and bought Hilton International [in 1967] and Century 21 [in 1978]. They wanted TWA out of the airline business.”
“American and United survived because they had iron-willed CEOs dedicated to being the number-one carrier. Ours were distracted,” says John Gratz, who flew for TWA from 1955 to 1991. “We were always known for coming up with little gimmicks like inflight movies, coffee and [frozen] meals, but the big corporate decisions were lacking.”
Still, TWA’s future was brightening. “As the U.S. economy improved in the late 1960s, TWA’s fortunes started to improve along with the entire industry, even though we were still dragging the weight of a debt burden the other carriers didn’t have,” says Cosley. “The news stories always started with ‘Financially troubled airline TWA.’”
That financial trouble was only exacerbated in 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act, turning what had been an orderly system of cost and profit into a flurry of desperate competition.
“Deregulation set fire to the industry,” says Cosley. “Every carrier had the same problem then as now, and nobody in the industry has yet solved the riddle: How do you compete while effectively managing your costs? The fixed-cost burden—labor, leases, fuel, all variables that management cannot control—ate us alive.”
In 1984, TWA’s parent company, which owned Hilton and Century 21, cut the airline loose, a broken-winged bird helpless before the pounce of the ultimate corporate predator: Carl Icahn. In retrospect, TWA should have known better. In 1985, Icahn launched a sneak attack, buying up more than 20 percent of the airline’s stock. TWA fought back, and another suitor entered the picture: Frank Lorenzo, president of Texas Air.
If anyone could make Icahn look good, it was Lorenzo. Infamous for breaking the unions at Continental, he was the last person on earth TWA’s union workers wanted for a boss.
“Most all of us thought Carl Icahn would be better,” says Gratz. “Everyone was so upset by the way Lorenzo handled the unions. He was more obviously ruthless than Icahn. You couldn’t see any redeeming quality about him.”
Icahn, though he already had a fairly dark reputation for buying and breaking up companies, told TWA what it wanted to hear: He wanted to make it profitable. Profit was his goal, all right, but not TWA’s. “He told employees TWA needed to grow to be competitive,” says Jeff Darnall, who flew for the airline from 1989 until he was furloughed in 2003. “We took him at his word. It was an opportunity to be with an airline that was poised for growth.”
Icahn did help the airline grow, most notably by acquiring Ozark Airlines in 1986, an act that cemented TWA’s dominance at its St. Louis hub. But soon enough, the party was over. “It became more and more apparent that Carl was not interested in growing the airline but in using TWA as a financial vehicle to acquire wealth for himself,” Darnall says. In 1988, Icahn took what many consider the first step toward the airline’s demise: He took TWA private. Icahn received $469 million in the deal, and TWA got something a little less attractive: $540 million in debt. That was just one manifestation of Icahn’s short-term–gain thinking. “Icahn wanted it to be a low-cost, low-fare airline,” says Casey. “He loved one ad that we ran—‘The World is a Bargain When You Know Where to Shop.’ I said, ‘You know, Carl, TWA can be a bargain if TWA stands for something, but if the only thing TWA stands for is a bargain, it’s not a bargain. He said, ‘I believe you, but when I run the ad, the phones ring.’”
In 1989, Icahn made another revealing move. According to Darnall, employees were anticipating an order for 100 or more airplanes to replenish TWA’s aging fleet. When the order was announced, it was for 12. “That was an indication to me that we had been hoodwinked,” Darnall says. In 1991, Icahn did something that still causes twinges of pain for those who were there when it happened. He sold TWA’s prized London routes to American Airlines for $445 million.
“Selling the London routes was a killer,” says Gratz. “They were valuable as hell. The other things he did—trying to implement draconian procedures for everything, having people watch people—it’s all a hill of beans compared to losing those routes.”
In 1992, TWA filed for bankruptcy, emerging in 1993 with its creditors owning 55 percent of the company. One of those creditors, to the tune of $190 million, was Icahn. He resigned as chairman in 1993, and by 1995 he was growing impatient to be repaid. TWA executives, desperate to bring the tragic Icahn chapter to a close, gave away the farm, the cows and the farmer’s wife. They came up with a deal called the Karabu ticket agreement, an eight-year arrangement that allowed Icahn to buy any ticket that connected through St. Louis (but not those that originated or ended here, so St. Louisans never had access to the cheap tickets) for 55 cents on the dollar and resell them at a discount.
Karabu blocked Icahn from selling the tickets through travel agents, but it didn’t even mention the embryonic Internet, where he immediately set up Lowestfare.com and commenced to bleed TWA dry, one ticket at a time. “He put downward pressure on the amount TWA could sell tickets for because we were essentially competing with ourselves,” Gratz says.
American Airlines later estimated that Karabu cost TWA $100 million a year, but as bad as Karabu turned out to be for TWA, and as fervently as its constructors may have later wished they had closed the Internet loophole, TWA didn’t have many options at the time.
“There was no $190 million. There was nowhere to get $190 million. TWA had two choices: accept the agreement or shut down,” says Mark Abels, who was vice president of corporate communications from 1996 to 2001.
“They said, ‘OK, you mangy pirate, we’ll do the deal.’ If the airline didn’t do the Karabu deal, it would have gone out of existence in 1995 rather than 2001.”
TWA didn’t go out of business in 1995, but it did go into bankruptcy—again.
It emerged a couple months later, beaten down and limping behind the other major carriers but starting to perhaps not see but at least imagine clear skies ahead.
“We called it the 70-year-old startup,” says Dave Pelter, who was TWA’s director of revenue analysis at the time. “The carrier had just turned in a profitable quarter; things were looking up. There was an immense amount of potential.”
On July 17, 1996, a Paris-bound TWA plane exploded off Long Island, killing all 230 passengers. TWA was shattered by the tragedy of Flight 800, but it picked itself up and tried, once again, to turn things around. Long one of the worst performers in on-time arrivals, TWA surged to the front of the pack. It ordered hundreds of new planes, touting its renewed fleet with an ad campaign that boasted “a new plane every 10 days.”
“If we could outlast Carl Icahn, I really felt that we would have been in good shape from then on,” says Jeffrey Struyk, a pilot with TWA from 1998 until his furlough in 2002. “We’d done a lot to improve our operations. There was a real sense of optimism.”
Given that optimism, it’s not surprising that some of the unionized employees decided that it was time to recoup the money they had lost. A series of givebacks had started in the 1980s, all concessions the airline had insisted it must have to survive. TWA had survived; now it was time to pony up.
“TWA ended up with a contract for the pilots which was more than we had hoped for,” says Jack Stelzer, who was with the airline from the late ’60s to the mid-’70s and rejoined the carrier in 1997 as vice president of planning. “The mechanics, unfortunately, continued to live in a hypothetical universe where TWA was the largest airline in the world. They thought it was necessary for TWA to increase operations in JFK and to have large maintenance bases in Kansas City and JFK. Both of those things were very problematic.” Problematic or not, the mechanics, represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, got what they wanted by threatening a work stoppage.
“We might have caved too quickly,” concedes Stelzer. “We were concerned that if we held out, the final settlement would have ended up raising our costs significantly more than we originally planned. We had the fear that every airline has: When you have a strike, you have no revenue, and TWA at the time was not in a position to be able to fly through that.”
“To threaten a strike, I thought that was pretty inappropriate,” says Struyk. “They seemed to be asking for a lot, and a strike would have shut us down. I wasn’t too happy that they were playing hardball at a time like that.”
The IAM contract would come back to haunt TWA. Those maintenance facil-ities in Kansas City and JFK, where the planes underwent “heavy checks” every five to six years, were siphoning money from TWA’s bottom line, and there was nothing the airline could do about it.
“The unions were insistent that they remain open,” says Abels. “Down the line, the Kansas City operation was more than big enough to serve the whole fleet. Even that might have been extraneous, because in order to be profitable, you farm out your heavy checks. Southwest, for example, has never done a heavy check. Maintenance at those facilities was pretty much stopped, but we couldn’t close them.”
Another problem was TWA’s international operations. Stripped of its lucrative London slots, TWA had become a weak presence in Europe, but it had a payroll of European workers that predated deregulation. Before the advent of computerized reservation systems, airlines required a lot of manpower to process each flight. “And once you hire somebody in Europe, they’re hired for life,” says Stelzer. “It’s a cradle-to-grave employment situation. We had more employees in Milan than in places where we had 10 to 12 flights a day. We had to either pay them forever or try to buy them out, which meant wages and salaries for the next 25 years. That made it extremely difficult to be competitive with the Continentals and Deltas and Americans that were coming in, outsourcing labor.”
All of this added up to a sorrowful reality: TWA was not going to make it.
“We had cleaned up a lot of the historical challenges and were on a path toward renewal,” says Pelter. “It just wasn’t enough.”
In January 2001, time ran out. CEO Bill Compton held a press conference to announce TWA’s third and final bankruptcy and a purchase offer from American Airlines. Depending on whom you ask, the American purchase was either inevitable or borderline criminal. Compton, the pilot-turned-executive who orchestrated the sale and claimed it was TWA’s only option, is described variously as a good-hearted savior, a bumbling naïf and a turncoat who sold out the employees for personal profit.
“We were actually making progress, good progress,” says Darnall. “Our costs were among the lowest in the industry. The only thing that was keeping us from showing profit was Carl Icahn’s ticket agreement, and that was scheduled to expire in September 2003. We were very close to getting out from under that burden. We all knew that the winter of 2000 was going to be a difficult time. Winters were difficult times for all airlines. Our cash position was not flush, but we were convinced that TWA was going to make it without too much difficulty.”
“I was pretty surprised by the bankruptcy announcement,” says Struyk. “When the press release came out, it made it sound a lot more bleak than I thought it was.”
Given that reaction, it’s a pretty safe bet that Compton isn’t spending his days hanging out with his old TWA flying buddies, who sum up their feeling about his role in the sale with one word: betrayal. One pilot speculates that Compton’s motives in setting up the sale were more personal than professional, “a defensive move so that he was not replaced as CEO.” “I think nothing could be further from the truth,” Pelter says. “You don’t take a job like that because of a golden parachute. I think Bill, at the bottom of his heart, thought he was making the best decision he could to save jobs.”
“Bill Compton did every-thing he possibly could,” agrees airline analyst Michael Boyd. “Despite his union background, he was one of the most competent CEOs in the business. It had just gone too far.”
Or maybe he just didn’t know what he was doing. “If he did have TWA’s best interests at heart, he’d have to be naïve in the extreme to turn over a company like TWA to the likes of American Airlines, a company that has a reputation for being bloodthirsty when it comes to acquisitions,” says Darnall.
“As a guy who was on the scene,” counters Casey, “I can tell you that Bill Compton was not naïve. This was a guy who was used to doing a little horse trading as the head of the pilots’ union.”
The employees have their suspicions, but analysts and former executives say that Compton’s representation of the situation was sad but true. “TWA was dead meat,” says Ray Neidl, an analyst with Calyon Securities. “They didn’t have the market size, they didn’t have the fleet, they didn’t have the cost structure. Mainly they just didn’t have market mass. They were becoming a nonentity in a market that was dominated by low-cost carriers and giants. TWA was out of options.”
“By March of 2000, the tech stocks and dot-com market had started to implode,” says Stelzer. “Trillions of dollars were taken out of the stock market. Also, interest rates had started to go up, and fuel prices started to edge up a little bit. Demand was declining because the people who had been flying in the late ’90s weren’t flying anymore. It got worse and worse into 2001.”
“Painful as it was and is, the sale at least saved the core of the operation,” says Cosley. “It was the only option. The other airlines had their own problems; they didn’t want to buy into TWA’s.”
In fact, in February 2001 Compton testified before the Senate Commerce Committee, saying that he had approached every major airline in the United States. “No one was interested in TWA as a going concern,” he said. “Most recognized that they would benefit from TWA’s demise and decided they would sit back and let it happen.”
And it would have happened—soon. “The cash position was such that had American not stepped up to the deal on the day that they did, on the next day we would have shut down the airline,” says Abels.
As American was preparing to take over TWA, another potential buyer emerged: Carl Icahn. That was all it took. As had happened 16 years earlier, when the fear of Frank Lorenzo drove TWA’s employees into the arms of an arguably deadlier foe, the specter of Icahn, who made a $1.1-billion offer and said he would keep the airline independent while demanding labor concessions and making job cuts, made the American offer seem aglow with promise.
The bankruptcy judge dismissed Icahn’s offer as a joke, but even if it had been seriously considered, he had earned such a bitter reputation with TWA’s rank and file that they would have willingly marched off the American Airlines plank anyway.
Under American, everything sounded good—at first. The workforces were integrated in a way that put TWA employees at a disadvantage, but at least they were working. American promised to keep St. Louis as a hub and even expand its operations here.
“It looked like American had seen some value in the company,” says Struyk, “and it looked like we had something to contribute.”
Then came 9/11, and the promise of the American purchase lay in ruins along with the innocence of a nation.
“On 9/11, I knew it was over,” says Struyk.
In October 2001, American began making job cuts. Some employees were laid off; some were furloughed (removed from active status indefinitely).
The next casualty was the St. Louis hub. In November 2003, American resized the hub “to reflect size of St. Louis marketplace,” says American spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan. American eliminated about 200 flights and restructured the remaining ones so that about 70 percent of travelers were originating in St. Louis, with 30 percent connecting, mostly from short- range destinations.
It wasn’t a popular decision, but it was a logical one. “Connecting flights don’t make you much money,” says Abels. “We had about a 70-30 mix of connecting to local traffic. You need 50-50 to make a hub operation work.”
In fact, the move made so much sense that it caused some to wonder whether a downsizing at St. Louis had been the plan all along.
“They blamed most of what they did on September 11. It was a convenient excuse for a lot of things that had nothing to with September 11,” says Gwendolyn Miller, a furloughed flight attendant who was with TWA for 25 years. (Paranoia? Perhaps, but American CEO Don Carty lent credence to the idea when he resigned in 2003, after approving bonuses for senior officials while simultaneously downsizing the St. Louis hub and urging employees to help the airline stave off bankruptcy with huge concessions.)
St. Louis had always been a problem for TWA. “In St. Louis we had a hub that was simply not viable from a profitability standpoint,” says Abels. “I say that as a native St. Louisan who loves St. Louis, who has chosen to live out my life and die in St. Louis. But St. Louis is not big enough to maintain a hub like Chicago or Dallas. It doesn’t have nearly enough traffic.”
“Under the original plan, it would have been a great secondary connecting point for American,” says Boyd. “American would have been the strongest carrier in the U.S. But I’ve read some of the old St. Louis materials saying, ‘You’ll always be a hub.’ No, you won’t. American is slowly eliminating it as a hub. It has maybe a couple years left.”
Given TWA’s strange history, the what-if game is too tempting to avoid, especially the biggest hypothetical of all: If TWA had not been purchased by American, would it have survived 9/11?
“If it weren’t for American, we would still be flying the TWA colors,” maintains Darnall.
“I don’t think there were three people in the world who would have given TWA a chance after Flight 800,” says Casey. “Four years later, we were a better airline in every way in terms of our aircraft, service and financial position. If we made it for those four years when no one gave us a chance, maybe we could have made it after 9/11.”
After all, says Abels, “TWA should have failed in the Hughes era; in the ’60s, when it became a conglomerate and spun off the airline into a cash-poor nothing; in the Icahn era ... It was the airline that wouldn’t die.”
But then there are the realists. “If TWA had managed to stay in business through the summer of 2001—it would have been difficult, but it could have—it would not have had enough cash to make it through September 11,” says Stelzer.
So what killed TWA? It wasn’t one thing but a collection of problems, some shared by the rest of the industry, some part of the outlandish panoply that was TWA: Hughes’ meddling, Icahn’s greed, the hellish actions of a cadre of terrorists. A militant union, the collapse of the economy, the price of fuel, tardy attention to the necessity of alliances.
Given the chance to go back and rectify the mistakes, each TWA loyalist has a different plan.
“American challenged the Karabu deal in court and won,” Pelter says. “TWA could have tried to get it invalidated. There were some penalties; to challenge it was really rolling the dice, but that’s what I would do.”
“Somebody suggested to me that, at the very beginning, the airline industry should have made the pilots part of management instead of organized labor that could stop the airline from flying,” says Casey. “It would have been a very different industry and a very different airline.”
Stelzer rattles off his own detailed plan: “We could have gone into bankruptcy, cut operations at St. Louis in half, shut down JFK transatlantic, let go of over half the workforce, taken the capacity that had been flying in St. Louis and moved it to other cities, created focus cities like San Juan throughout the U.S. and effectively had small hubs through which we could flow some percentage of our airplanes. If we had done all that, we would still be flying today.”
Gratz isn’t sure. “TWA was really handicapped and had to be creative in many, many ways,” he says. “I really didn’t think they’d last as long as they did.”
