TWAHistory.com

Here’s the front page from the TWA Skyliner, TWA’s internal newspaper. I always enjoyed reading them after my father was done, as it always included interesting stats, or a look at a certain TWA station. Also interesting was reading the letters from passengers. During the Icahn years, it was pretty depressing to read most of them.

According to the front page, the main thing that was going on at TWA was that they were going through approvals to get service to the Soviet Union. I believe they got it later that year. It didn’t seem to last too long, though.

Also noted was the selling of TWA’s Chicago-Heathrow route to American Airlines.

Skyliner, of course, also being the name TWA called their 747’s.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a newspaper sized scanner, so it’s not the whole front page. Any hints on how to scan this stuff?

Click on the image for a larger version.

Here’s a picture of the TWA Moonliner in front of “Rocket to the Moon” at Disneyland:

(Click for larger image) 

Thanks to Gorilla’s Don’t Blog for this image.

For those of you that didn’t catch the Extreme Engineering on Discovery Channel: You didn’t miss much. It really didn’t show/talk about the original terminal. And as far as the construction went, it went on an on about them putting some air handlers on the roof, as well as contamination of the ground soil. Wasn’t super-exciting.

Now, here is a 1970’s TWA Commercial with the infamous Peter Sellers. This is advertising TWA’s “Trans World Service”. It’s amazing how much different flying in the USA is today. We flew America West a few years ago from Phoenix to Orlando and just received some cookies.

This is an interesting piece, and it’s part 1 of 3. Thanks to TWAviator for providing these on YouTube.

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.

Here’s an interesting commercial I found from 1960. Mostly it’s for Coca Cola, but it follows a TWA flight attendant through her day, while, of course, she drinks lots of Coke.

I wonder would you would have received if you would have written the address at the end of the commercial? Anyone know?

Here’s the cover and route map from the January to April 1987 TWA schedule. Pretty standard stuff.

This is during the time they had Trans World Express service in California. I don’t know much about it, but it didn’t seem to last long. Anyone know more?

You know the drill. Click for larger images.

January-April 1987 TWA Schedule-Cover:

January-April 1987 TWA Schedule-Routes:

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)

I guess I could have also called this entry “Signs, Signs, everywhere signs..” after a famous song.

This is a few of the placard’s that you’d see throughout the average TWA airplane. Probably the one most people didn’t want to see was the lavatory one.

I used to have one of the seat-back placards (the “life vest under your seat” one) attached in front of the passenger seat in my car.  Had a few weird looks over the years over that…

Click to see it larger.

A look back at a few of the commercials that were produced over the years.

First off, the commercial produced by American Airlines to promote the merger with TWA. While the tagline, “Two Great Airlines; One Great Future” is up to debate, the commercial is interesting.

Well, time to get things started!

Here the front and the route map for a 1977 TWA Schedule. Advertising “TWA’s Widebody 1011. The most advanced plane in the world.”

This was still a time before they centralized on St. Louis at the domestic hub. Flying from such places as Phoenix->San Francisco (a flight I took quite a few times in the early eighties, before we ended up moving to Phoenix.) I remember it being on 707’s mostly.

Click each image to see a larger version.