TWA May 1992 Schedule
Well, we’re back from Southern California, and had a great time. Got to hang out with the wife for our 7th wedding anniversary, went to Disneyland to ride the new Finding Nemo Submarine Ride, went deep-sea fishing, and also went to the LA Airline Memorabilia show.
I did pick up a few TWA items. Mostly schedules, though. They did have some nice TWA models, though. I had my eye on a TWA L1011, and even had purchase authority from the wife, but really wouldn’t have space to display it in my current office, so it will just have to wait until I have a bigger house.
Today’s update is TWA’s schedule from May 1992. The major news in this one is TWA’s announced service to Moscow, via Brussels. Not sure how successful this was, though, since it didn’t seem to stay around too long. According to a TWA Skyliner issue I have talking about it, it was using a 727-232.
I’ve included the handy-dandy gate maps that they included in the back of this schedule.
As always, click for a larger image.
February 4th, 2009 at 6:31 am
I worked at the TWA reservations & sales office in Brussels back when TWA operated the Moscow route, and I remember us trying to pronounce the airport’s name, our city office’s address, and having a laugh over it.
In the early 90′s (and perhaps at other times, but I wasn’t there then), TWA added what were called “beyond fifth freedom” flights (an airline from country A operating and selling a flight from country B to country C) to its transatlantic schedules: for instance the New York JFK to Brussels widebody aircraft (a B747, B767 or L1011, depending on the year and season) would arrive in Brussels around 7 or 8AM, fly on to Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich or somewhere else in Europe (having let most of the New York passengers off at Brussels, and picking up some Brussels passengers flying to the European destinations). It would then pick up passengers at the other European destination, come back to Brussels by about 10 or 11AM, pick up the Brussels passengers and head back out to New York.
Usually it was the transatlantic aircraft which continued from Brussels to the other European destinations, in the case of Moscow it was a separate aircraft which flew the SVO-BRU-SVO legs due to time restraints. The idea was to optimize the use of the transatlantic aircraft (it was worth more in the air than on the ground) and to put additional passengers on the transatlantic leg (as Brussels did not fill the widebodies every day of the year).
Other European TWA destinations has similar “add-ons”, which had a tendency of changing according to season and year.
I can’t remember how successful the Moscow route was, but I do recall an incident of a Russian caviar seller calling the reservations office in a panic one evening because the flight had been cancelled and his caviar needed to be put in cold storage!