TWAHistory.com

I received some comments that said, “Wow. Love the new website, but why is the header so generic?”

Well, it’s a long story.

Basically, before I created this website, I actually made a really cool header with a tail of a TWA DC-9 and the name of the blog. It looked really nice.

Then I was thinking, “Did I take this picture?” Well, it turned out, that I didn’t.

The picture that I used is actually located here, at airliners.net.

It’s very similar to a picture I took at STL of a DC9 tail, so I assumed it was mine.

Wrong.

I actually noticed before I put the site ‘live’, so no, I didn’t get sued or anything. But in the meantime, I put up the ‘generic’ header that you have been seeing.

Well, now I have a spiffy banner that has the classic late 1970’s - early 1990’s logo that TWA had. I have to admit, it’s my favorite. I’m sure that’s just due to me flying TWA a lot during that time in my youth, so that’s the color
scheme I attach to.

If you notice any weirdness on the website, please let me know!

Any comments?

The Discovery Channel is going to have an episode of their “Extreme Engineering” that will cover TWA’s former Terminal 5 at JFK.

It will be playing 10/25, 10/26, and 11/11.  You can check out the times here.

Hope you can check it out, as I will.

In about 1992, just after graduating high school, I decided to fly to JFK for the day.

Since I was a poor college student at the time, my main goal was to get some shots of TWA’s JFK terminal and aircraft.

Since I was non-rev’ing, I used an upgrade pass to fly First Class both ways. That was great, of course.

This was the same day that Carl Icahn announced he was selling TWA to the employees and creditors. There was a definite ‘upbeatness’ to the employees on that flight, that TWA was finally going to be rid of Icahn.
Here’s a picture I took of TWA’s T5 famous Saarinen terminal. Now closed, it’s supposed to become Jetblue’s new terminal after an extensive remodel.

In this picture, you’ll notice how ‘cluttered’ it appears. I understand later they removed the ‘advertisement’ you see in the large display, and returned it to an arrivals/departures board. Also, the ramp that’s blocking the stairs was also removed, as well as the security checkpoint was moved. This, I’m sure, made it much better, but it’s interesting to see it in this state.

I’ve included an image of the terminal after it’s been closed. You can see the difference.

I’ll have more pictures from this trip in the future.

Click on the image for a larger version.

TWA - T5 - Early 90’s

TWA - T5 - After Closing (About 10 Years Later)

Yes, welcome one and all to TWAHistory.com!

I’ve been wanting to setup a site like this for awhile. A place that people can come to read and see some of the things that made TWA a great airline.

My father worked for TWA for over 30 years as ‘ramp-rat‘ at both San Francisco (SFO) and St. Louis (STL).

I had a lot of memories of flights on TWA. My favorite? Any flight in first on the L-1011. Nice and quiet, with the great seats.

Of course, many memories of the St. Louis hub. Including spending the night in the terminal, after unsucessfully trying to non-rev to San Francisco on every flight. The last flight to SFO (ironically, an L1011), we were bumped. So spend the night in St. Louis, we did. Good times.

Over time, I’ll be showing a small part of what I have that I’ve collected over the years from TWA. But we also need you. I’m hoping people out there also have pieces of TWA history that they’d like to share with the rest of the world.

If you have anything you’d like to share, please email me at comments@twahistory.com.

Enjoy the Flight!