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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.
