Another day, another update. I realize it’s been way to long, so I once against apologize.
But I wanted to have a link to the University of Missouri-Kanas City’s Index of TWA Skyliner magazines.
This, of course, being the in-house newspaper of what was going on around Trans World Airlines.
The school has so far scanned the 2000’s, and the 1990’s issues. They’re slowly working their way back.
It’s a great resource, and it’s very interesting!
Yes. It has been too long, and for that, I apologize.
I am working on updates, but in the meantime, I had to share an email I received about this post. Specifically, the TWA jeep that we had a picture of:
A Mr. Ron Greene wrote me to say:
The red Jeep looks like the one that the TWA LAX fire extinguisher
inspector used to drive around in to do his/her rounds checking the weight
of fire extinguishers and bringing them in for servicing. The last fire
inspector that I knew before I was laid off for the last time in 1992 was
Yvonne Horn, who was a guard before that and a plane cleaner and Dining
Unit worker before that. The fire inspector job was a pretty plum job as I
recall. I used to see the Jeep parked around the Building
Maintenance/Garage area at LAX when I worked there as an Plant Maint
electrician.Good times dont last forever,
Ron Greene
Very true, Ron, very true. Well, that answers the question about the jeep!
..sorry about that.
Once again, it’s been busy around the twahistory.com home-base. Projects around the house, projects for the wife, and projects for work.
I’m working on getting an update out toward the end of this week.
Today is the front page from the employee newsletter, the “TWA Skyliner”. The big news?
They were bringing back the Polar Route: LAX-CDG. This was served with the first of the Boeing 767-300’s they purchased. This particular one was from Condor. (It was TWA #16103, tail # N691LF. You can see a picture of it from airliners.net right here.)
Also in this issue: Optimism about TWA’s Summer Schedule, including more international flights from JFK (59 today to 77 by June 1st) and more flights from STL (257 today to ‘more than 300′ by June 1st). A lot of these increases were by reducing service at the infamous ATL hub from 57 down to 11 flights.
Also included is an article about a retired TWA pilot by the name of Captain Randy Kramer. He spent his own time in the LAX Ambassador’s Club greeting passengers and in general, spreading goodwill. Another example of how TWA’s people went ‘above and beyond’.
Enjoy!
While looking at some old commercials on YouTube, I came across this video from KABC in Los Angeles in 1980.
If you jump to 1:05 into the video, you’ll see a commercial from TWA where “Kids Fly Free*” (* not on Florida or Arizona routes. I wonder why not AZ.)
And of course, the great 1980’s slogan: “You’re going to like us, TWA!” One of their best.
Yeah, it’s been too long.
Sorry about that; it’s been hectic here.
So, today, I present the April 1992 schedule. The highlights? Well, TWA was flying to Moscow. Only $800 in economy! I believe this was a 727-200 from Brussels to Moscow, but not 100% sure on that.
Click images for larger versions.
Thanks to the Disneyland blog Stuff from the Park, we have a brochure that TWA released for taking TWA to Disneyland. The copyright date on the brochure is 1955, so this is from shortly after the park opened.
Of course, TWA sponsored the “Rocket Ship to the Moon” ride. This was later changed to Mars.
Thanks to reader Alex S, he pointed out this recent auction on Ebay: TWA’s $100,000 Cosmic Auction.
According to the description, it was a contest that TWA put on back in 1955. You’d write an essay describing what air travel would be like in 30 years, or 1985.
You could enter an essay to win $50,000 now or $50,000 in 1985. In 1985, they’d open the container of all the entries and pick a winner.
Does anyone know if this was given way in 1985? According to the images, it was stored at the Kansas City maintenance base, so maybe someone there could recall it? (That is, to say, if Icahn didn’t take the $50,000 to buy something else.
I’ve attached the images from the auction, to be sure these are kept. It’s very interesting!
If anyone has any information on this contest, be sure to leave a comment or send me some email.
First off, happy 2008 to everyone out there!
Today’s link is a video of a Boeing 727 landing at STL. All hand-flown, it’s very cool to hear the sounds of the cockpit.
Here’s a commercial from 1980 featuring the L1011. Of course, this is probably also around the time the DC-10 was having problems, so they really wanted to ‘push’ the L1011, for good reason.
And a steak? In coach? Wow. Who doesn’t miss those days. 