Trans World Airlines began in 1930 as a coast-to-coast mail carrier and grew into one of the glamour airlines of the jet age. Howard Hughes bought control in 1939, kept it at the leading edge of aircraft technology — first with the Constellation, early across the Atlantic with jets — and was eventually forced out by creditors in 1960 after years of erratic command. By 1988 TWA briefly carried more than half of all transatlantic passengers, a peak it would never see again.
The damage was financial and structural. Carl Icahn’s 1985 leveraged buyout stripped assets to pay debt, and a ticket-sales deal he left behind cost the airline an estimated $150 million a year. TWA filed Chapter 11 in 1992, again in 1995, and a third time in January 2001. American Airlines bought the assets that April. The last TWA flight landed in St. Louis just before midnight on 1 December 2001; at midnight it became an American Airlines flight, and TWA was gone.
Worth remembering
- Howard Hughes took control of TWA in 1939 and ran it partly as a personal instrument, putting it on the cutting edge of aircraft technology before creditors forced him out in 1960 after a long legal fight.
- In the summer of 1988 TWA carried more than half of all transatlantic passengers, a single-airline share of that market that has not been matched since — the brief peak of a carrier that would file its third bankruptcy thirteen years later.
Sources
- TWA was founded on 16 July 1930 as Transcontinental & Western Air; in 1988 it carried more than half of all transatlantic passengers, and it filed for Chapter 11 three times, in 1992, 1995 and 2001. Wikipedia
- TWA ceased independent operations on 1 December 2001 when its final flight landed and all TWA flights became American Airlines flights after acquisition by AMR. Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Carl Icahn's 1985 leveraged buyout saddled TWA with debt, and the 'Karabu' ticket deal he negotiated afterward cost the airline an estimated $150 million a year even after he left control. Wikipedia
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