Sky High: The Story of TWA | 2001

[Music] [Applause] it became one of the most famous corporate names in the world this airline which grew to have thousands of employees serving millions of passengers had its roots in the days of biplanes and barnstormers this is the story of that long journey the smooth times and the turbulent times this was the airline of charles lindbergh howard hughes and carl icahn an airline that helped invent the business of air passenger service flying around the world in one era and bankrupt in the next this is the story of the people and planes that took twa through 75 years of history [Music] [Applause] [Music] funding for sky high the story of twa has been provided by community america credit union for 60 years serving the community and employees of twa with investments loans and innovative financial products like 24-hour internet and telephone account access community america credit union building financial success together every day all over the world people are getting on airplanes unfazed and for the most part unafraid of getting on a machine that will take them tens of thousands of feet above the earth and deliver them just about anywhere in a matter of hours it has become so common and so crowded that it is considered more inconvenient than remarkable and it is a complex business we've got 185 airplanes that are flying 820 flights a day 365 days a year to 100 different cities all over the world it is a complex business where you have to deal with the weather and all the air traffic control systems and those sorts of things [Music] it wasn't anything like this in the beginning for twa that was in 1925. any airline that survived into the 21st century and twa just barely made it had a story to tell about people planes politics and occasionally profits in the 1980s it took the airline industry just a few years to lose more money than it had made in all its history we talk about twa's challenges over 75 years from a financial perspective but if you look at the entire industry from the start of the wright brothers in 1903 through 1994 all of the airlines combined had not generated one dollar a profit [Music] these were the technology startup firms of the early 20th century they started with brilliant and daring young inventors who then attracted wealthy investors big corporations and the u.s government it was clear this new technology would have all kinds of practical applications but it would take time to figure out what made sense and what made money [Music] world war one gave aviation its first real business the first demand for large quantities of planes mechanics and pilots but when the war was over it was mostly all surplus a civilian pilot was about as employable in the peacetime economy of 1919 as an artillery man but while the government wouldn't sell you a howitzer it was practically giving away airplanes it became the age of the barnstormer the itinerant pilot who put on a show and then made money selling rides and teaching others how to fly there was understandably far more enthusiasm for watching airplanes than riding in them the airplanes were not reliable in themselves they were somewhat hazardous to fly but dealing with the environment was really a major challenge for the early pilots yeah we had several crashes there in my early days in flying yeah i lost my best friend and my first flying i've ever did in school with ku and we went out together so i i got started accustomed to airplane crashes the government licensed pilots and later funded the installation of a series of beacons stretching all the way across the country to make night flying safer that wasn't for barnstormers that was for airmail pilots one thing airplanes could do in peacetime was fly bags of mail from city to city then in 1925 the u.s government made one of the most significant decisions in the history of aviation it decided to turn the air mail business over to commercial flyers and that's what turned airplanes into airlines that paid the bill and that kept the industry going and everything that occurred in the very early days of aviation surrounded air mail there were brave passengers taken on these flights if there was a seat available among the mailbags but air travel didn't make much sense not compared to traveling by trains which were fast comfortable and on time and trains didn't drop you off in a field outside of town there were a few airline operators who thought the passenger business did have a future one of them was a californian named harris pop hanshu and it is with him that twa's history begins in 1925 pop hanshu started an air mail operation out of los angeles called western air express he wanted to get into the passenger business but knew it wouldn't make money what made it happen was an organization that was more interested in progress than profit the guggenheim foundation for the promotion of aeronautics loaned hanshu the money to create a model airway a passenger operation that would put to use the best equipment and technology available hanshu bought three new planes poker tri-motors with seats for 12 passengers and the airway between la and san francisco was made as safe as modern science could make it and that included a system of weather observation stations uh spaced a maximum of 50 miles apart that that were linked together by telephone so that although in in today's terms it was a rather uh feeble and archaic process they were nevertheless able to transmit weather information up and down the line and radio the information to cockpit crews although still supported by its mail contracts western air express became one of the country's most extensive passenger airlines it flew throughout the west and in 1929 it inaugurated service to kansas city where passengers could get on a train to just about anywhere in the country airlines that were thinking big were thinking about an operation stretching from coast to coast planes by day and trains by night and that's where twa's other parent company comes into the story a brand new airline called t-a-t trans-continental air transport this was no barnstarmer grown-up from the start this was a project of big money big business and the biggest name charles lindbergh and now just picture yourself taking this rail and air journey to california starting any day of the year at six o'clock in the evening from the city of new york the airway limited first and only train of its kind in the world with a direct airline connection pulls out with its air-minded guests there were other operations that were trying to glue themselves together and work jointly with railroads to establish coast to coast service but they were all amalgamations of smaller operations whereas t.a.t started from the beginning with the intent and a valid plan and purpose of operating from coast to coast lindbergh helped pick out the planes for this operation the sturdy all-metal ford tri-motors he laid out the route and chose the stops the airline often had to build facilities for passengers including a first at many airstrips a ladies restroom tit's promotional film coast to coast in 48 hours sold speed safety and comfort on what must have been a grueling trip the big tri-motor all-metal plane is ready and waiting equipped like a pullman car its roomy cabin is well lighted and heated in winter time seated in our comfortable chairs we are all set now to see america best two things two adjectives that that first come to mind to describe flying certainly flying any distance in one of those things noisy and bumpy and after being in use for a specified number of hours each motor is completely overhauled by a core of experts working under the supervision of colonel lindberg and now colonel lindberg on a coast-to-coast inspection of the line passes our ship in mid-air he travels down they were trying to uh you know grow the traffic and of course a primary focus on that was to convince the public that airlines were safe and in the very beginning they were all flying vfr visual flight rules and of course with the weather summer you know thunderstorms winter ice the planes were not pressurized passengers could and did open the windows during the flight if you flew too high into the thin air everyone could pass out so the planes had to stay low where the air was and all too often where the rough weather was but in those days he just he just took the weather as it was if you had a thunderstorm we we just closed our eyes and flew through it thunderstorms and everything else you know we couldn't get on top of all this stuff like they do today you know you know you still don't get on top of everything but you get on top of most of it you know t.a.t was in business just a couple of months when one of its planes crashed in the mountains after taking off from albuquerque all eight people on board were killed then a western air express folker crashed in the same area and it was some time before these young airlines could get passengers back in their planes in the history of air passenger service this was the age of high hopes and big losses it was the government mail contracts that kept the airlines running and making money president hoover's postmaster general walter brown controlled those contracts he had the power over the future of airlines and of aviation and he used it he got the major airline operators together and kind of explained to them how he envisioned this competitive system of three transcontinental airline systems each one supported by air mail contracts it was all done away from public scrutiny and without competitive bidding in what would come to be called the spoils conference pan am got overseas mail eastern to east coast and the three transcontinental routes went to united in the north and american in the south and brown wanted t.a.t and western air express to merge to fly the central route the result of this shotgun marriage was a new airline called transcontinental and western air tnwa the 1930 spoils conference helped create the airlines that dominated commercial aviation for the next 50 years until the airline industry was deregulated pan am and eastern didn't survive those changes and twa fought hard to avoid the same fate after deregulation twa slipped from its position as a leading national and world airline in 1994 it moved its headquarters out of new york city to st louis in a way the airline was starting over moving back to the heart of the country where a young twa had first begun to really take off [Music] in 1931 the new airline called twa set up its headquarters in kansas city it started out operating the combined fleets of ford and folker tri-motors but it was already clear that the industry was ready for something much faster more comfortable and much safer they were still struggling to be definitive about whether this would be an air transportation system or just a rich man's toy or whatever and i think when they developed the dc3 it gave them the opportunity to be profitable and to to cope with the environment and so i think that was kind of the end of one phase the beginning of another at twa the job of finding a plane to replace the old tri-motors went to lindbergh and jack frye a former stunt pilot and future twa president it was competition that pushed them into action united was getting the brand new boeing 247 which would cut coast to coast travel time by seven hours since boeing and united were then owned by the same company twa wouldn't get any of the new planes soon so jack frye chose a small california firm douglas aircraft to design and build a plane for twa douglas turned out a prototype it called the dc-1 an all-metal streamlined 12-passenger twin-engine monoplane with retractable landing gear it was everything twa had wanted and more a few changes were made two more seats were added and it became the dc2 twa put them into service in 1934. i saw the first one come in here to kansas city you know i thought that's the biggest airplane i'll ever see in my days you know a ford to me was a pretty big airplane but that dc2 i can see a debt coming into the rising you know and coming in and landing straight in here in kansas city straight north and i was really impressed with that airplane you know the dc-2 like the boeing 247 didn't remain the best plane for long american airlines ordered up a larger version that could accommodate sleeper berths or more seats and it was the dc-3 that became the industry standard and one of the most famous planes in the history of aviation [Music] it seemed that everything was in its place for the airlines to create the national air passenger system big airlines with extensive routes and modern streamlined planes and then it nearly all fell apart the new democratic congress started to dig into what had really happened back in 1930 at the spoils conference back in the hoover administration and it sure looked like airlines backed by big business got the contracts and the little guys got left out it turned into a front page scandal and president roosevelt cancelled all the air mail contracts he gave the job to the u.s army which was not nearly as modern or experienced as the commercial lines to make that point jack fry asked world war one hero eddie rickenbacker to help him fly twa's dc-1 to washington dc they flew coast to coast in record time and delivered the last load of commercial mail but it was the army's problems that really made the point it was understaffed and inexperienced and the winter of 1934 was terrible the crashes and deaths of army pilots came in alarming numbers and the airmail contracts went back to the airlines seven years later in 1941 the airline business for the first time began to make more money carrying people than mailbags but it was more than the sleek modern airliners that redefined the experience of flying in the 1930s it was also the introduction of a brand new crew member hi we have your jews you're welcome the flight attendant is every airlines frontline employee on the airplane essential to both operations and public relations today both men and women perform the duties there was a time when it was all women before that all young women and earlier than that the job didn't exist this was one of the duties of the co-pilot [Music] in the early days of flying it was thought that a man in uniform gave the passengers a sense of security and safety even handing out sandwiches twa gave the job to young women only after united and american had started putting stewardesses on their flights in 1935 twa recruited 22 young women the first class of what this airline called its hostesses you had to be a registered nurse within a certain height and weight range single no bleach blondes and you had to be what management considered a nice girl and except for being a registered nurse many requirements stayed the same for a long time to qualify on most airlines she must be healthy single and between the ages of 21 and 28. she must be between five feet two and five feet six inches in height and of normal weight girls who are accepted receive special training in the rudiments of flight regulations air routes meteorology and aeronautics i started in the class of february 1st 1960. they like girls that were from good families and a lot of us were from the midwest and some of us were from the farms i think they were looking for more like the girl next door not very much makeup natural hair color we had to have very short hair our hair could not touch our collar lots and lots of rules and regulations and then the final image was like a coca-cola girl we all had bright red lipstick and we all looked alike and we didn't mind that because it was such a select group and we felt fortunate to have the job there have been a lot of changes since the job was created some of them forced by the flight attendants who didn't want to lose their jobs because they put on a few pounds got married had children or because they celebrated a certain birthday other changes were cosmetic every few years the airline would update the uniform to hit just the right balance stylish but professional some hostesses uniforms are considered classics others fell short they're made of paper and designed for twa's foreign accent flights within the united states here they are the roman toga worn for the italian accent flight the english accent pub costume complete with miniskirt paper pajamas set the mood for airborne service manhattan penthouse style and for french style flights the hostess wears a gold paper mini dress but even the paper uniforms of 1968 which some senior hostesses simply refused to wear and which disappeared after eight months were an example of how important these most visible employees had become to the selling of an airline and its image we felt like we wanted to give the public the best image and the best service and we were always competing with united and american and service was twa's big name that was our main way of competing from the beginning the job attracted young women who liked people liked to travel and had a spirit of adventure in the early days especially there was the element of danger a year before the first hostesses were hired the nation read about the death of famed notre dame football coach newt rockne in the crash of one of twa's old poker tri-motors in kansas any tragedy makes headlines the spotlight is even brighter when a celebrity is involved the following year u.s senator bronson cutting of new mexico was killed in the crash of one of twa's new dc-2s the pilot had been unable to land in kansas city because of bad weather and low on fuel he tried to fly on to kirksville missouri and didn't make it cuttings fellow members of congress wanted to know what had happened and they found out plenty bad weather forecasting poor communication a faulty guidance system because the of the legislation that was generated they now had federally certificated airways and so that was the first recognition or first attempt to bring the airway system under federal control and to maintain it to a level that would guarantee safety for a long time the air traffic control system was trying to catch up to the planes in the air in the early days there were spotters on the ground who relayed a plane's position to someone who pushed little markers across a map even after the introduction of radar there were vast regions in the 1950s without full air traffic control that too changed because of another tragedy on june 30th 1956 a twa constellation and a united dc-7 collided in mid-flight over the grand canyon killing 128 people both aircraft were reported missing it was it was sometime several hours before they could detected something must have happened and that actually was my flight uh i was flying with that whole crew but due to due to adjustment of schedules i wasn't on that particular flight but i'd flown with that crew all that month the planes were flying above the clouds it's possible they were both maneuvering for an opening so their passengers could see the canyon but both planes technically had been following instructions once again it was the system that had proved inadequate and improvements were made today there is never a time when a commercial airliner is on its own over the u s it is always on somebody's radar screen always subject to direction and guidance by the faa but there are always calls to make it better to install new technology to spend the money and if there is a crash to use everything available to find out what went wrong the crash of twa flight 800 in 1996 was the subject of the most extensive investigation in aviation history the boeing 747 had left new york headed for paris when it blew up in the air and fell into the ocean off the coast of long island killing all 230 people on board investigators said they found no evidence of a bomb or missile but concluded that an explosion in the central fuel tank was most likely set off by a short circuit in the plane's wiring it was a terrible disaster for the victims and their families and a heartbreaking setback for an airline that was just beginning to fight its way back there were huge costs associated with that both from from a public relations perspective from from actual expenses during the incident and for what it did to tdba employees i mean we had 53 of our fellow employees on board that airplane and it and it sucked the heart out of many of us for a period of time it was a terrible tragedy but no i never questioned whether we would be able to survive that in the 1930s the airlines knew that if they were going to make flying faster and safer they would have to fly higher than the unpressurized dc-2s and dc-3s could go but along with the promise of altitude and speed came new dangers twa had a test pilot named tommy tomlinson whose job it was to face and beat the challenges of high altitude flying using a northrop gamma male plane as a flying laboratory the dc-1 prototype was also put into use to test new propellers and engines and to deal with the problems of icing communications and navigation at thirty thousand feet in 1936 the technology was ready and jack fry made a deal with boeing to build the 33 seat straddle liner the world's first four engine pressurized passenger plane the problem for twa was how to pay for them the airline was losing money in the late 30s and fry found the board of directors unwilling to commit to the new planes jack fry then took a step that would change the history of twa he went to california to talk to howard hughes the howard hughes of 1939 was a famous playboy millionaire hollywood film producer and daring aviator who had set a speed record for flying around the world he had millions and he loved planes hughes told fry that he didn't just want to invest in twa he wanted to buy the whole thing in later life hughes became a recluse but back then he dealt with people every day twa employees who had a chance to meet him could find him quite likable but definitely a bit of an oddball about that time some fell back in the corner of the office there he was sitting there with his feet up in the chair and had no pair of seersucker pants on and and tennis shoes without any socks and an old dirty shirt i'd seen his picture before it was howard hughes with hughes fortune behind the company jack fry was able to buy the straddle liners but by the time he got them he couldn't use them the straddle liners and twa went to war the military needed airlines to operate its flights to europe pan am was the only airline with any real experience flying overseas but it relied heavily on its flying boats the government needed the newer land-based planes and the airlines to fly them twa got its foot in the door of international operations because of its new straddle liners twa had five of them and pan am i believe had four in 1942 i helped prepare them for military duty we put took the seats out most of the seats out of the airplane and we put fuel tanks in the fuselage for long range flying and then we paint them a camouflage color and they went to what we call icd international intercontinental division for twa twa also had another plane on order from lockheed that would have to go straight to the military the first constellation with its shark-shaped body and three tail fins rolled off the assembly line in 1944 hughes and frye knew they wouldn't get the plane until after the war but they managed to give it a twa paint job they then personally flew the first constellation to washington to hand it over to the army in front of the press and newsreel cameras twa's intercontinental division flew some 10 000 military flights when the war was over the airline didn't want to go back to the old ways of doing things with pan am the only us airline flying overseas with its wartime experience and howard hughes connections in washington twa was allowed to turn its overseas military operation into a peacetime business well when the war ended we admitted twa immediately received permission to operate the commercial route overseas and i just stayed in the same seat and transferred right over then we started out flying c-54s our dc4 is a we call them a commercial version and shortly thereafter we started receiving the first of the constellations and we flew them over there also with great fanfare twa inaugurated service to paris france on february 5th 1946 with a brand new constellation the star of paris although the company's name would not be officially changed until 1950 transcontinental and western air was now being called transworld airlines [Music] in other ways though 1946 was a tough year for the airline howard hughes nearly killed himself crashing one of his experimental planes the constellations had to be grounded for two months to fix a problem then the pilots walked out in twa's first strike the company was losing money jack fry's job was at stake and in 1947 he was fired he left the airline he had built but he also left the strange and unpredictable ways of howard hughes top executives got used to not seeing or hearing from hughes for long stretches and then getting a middle of the night phone call that could last for hours hughes was known to order up a special flight for a favorite hollywood starlet or keep a full plane on the ground because a friend was running late and sometimes he wanted a whole twa airliner and crew just for himself he wanted to fly the constellation see so i went out there so he flew and we did he was great for touch and go landings he was just incensed with the idea flying that airplane to where he could master it completely you know yeah but he was a wonderful person on the ground i thoroughly enjoyed it he would pick me up at the hotel and drive me at the airport you know and stop and he never did fill his gas tank he had an old cadillac car that he drove he just go in and buy four or five gallons you know he was a little different person you know he wasn't the routine type that you're used to hughes did add to twa's growing public reputation as the most glamorous airline this wasn't the lindbergh line anymore twa had become the airline of the stars and an airline to the world this is twa flight 964 constellation sky tourist service to london england this is twa flight 905 from bombay india 8400 and 43 hours twa just kept going until one day it was flying all the way around the world naturally we're prejudiced because we're part of that area but that was the golden years and it was still a high class passenger cadre as well as the airplanes and we took great pride in being the best that was out there and i felt we were in 1948 twa introduced its luxury sky chief fares on international flights which came with home limousine service special meals and sleeper births on the constellations the following year it went after budget travelers with its new sky tourist fairs on coast to coast flights in post-war america more and more people were taking their first flight and even their first trip to europe by the 1950s the airplane had surpassed the ocean liner as the most popular way of crossing the atlantic this flight takes you non-stop to paris you know oh yes paris oh i've always wanted to see paris first of all i'll visit notre dame the most famous cathedral in the whole world pan am still had more overseas routes but it didn't have twa's domestic operations you see as a travel agent i know that from right here in topeka you can fly this one airline all the way to europe africa and asia let me show you your plane's a lockheed constellation in our book she's the sweetest 300 mile an hour baby that flies the atlantic as good as aviation had gotten as comfortable as far-reaching and as fast people were already talking about the new technology the next great age of aviation was on the horizon but there was a consensus among many of the pilots that jets were never going to be practical for airline operation that they were all right for the military because they burned too much fuel they used too much runway they couldn't get them stopped without drag chutes they had no reverse thrust at that on those particular jets so it was uh kind of a step that we were going to make but there were a lot of people who didn't believe it was really going to work ultimately that was proved very wrong it became the biggest step in aviation for airlines entering the jet age was once again a matter of careful planning and financing but that wasn't the way howard hughes did business he trusted his instincts and didn't trust bankers hughes was ordering new jets but he was handling the financing the way he flew planes by the seat of his pants the bankers and twa board members weren't willing to take those kinds of risks twa's first jet delivery in 1959 was just a single boeing 707 and the airline was in danger of falling far behind the competition if things didn't change by the end of 1960 howard hughes was out the board brought in bendix corporation executive charles tillinghast to lead twa into this new era and by 1967 twa was the first u.s airline to have an all-jet fleet it was quite a transition you were flying at speeds you never thought you could fly before and altitudes you never thought you could get to before and it was a big transition there were some pilots and and people involved in this that never quite made that transition and everything was speeded up it was twice as fast instead of going around 300 miles per hour we're going 600 and therefore we had to work faster in order to get our job done our 707s came on in 59 and 60 and the girls that were brand new very junior got to fly the jets because the senior girls did not want to it doubled their payload half their flight time and the services on board were not that much affected so it was a challenge with a capital c so we stayed on the connies our constellations until they were retired in 67. [Music] it wasn't just the jet that created modern aviation but the marriage of the jet to the computer the changes were not only on the planes themselves but in air traffic control centers where computers allowed the system to deal with the increased speed and volume of commercial air traffic where every plane's identity and location was tracked times and distances calculated and warnings issued and computers made possible the sophisticated flight simulators that could prepare pilots in ways once unimaginable and i often would say to people when i was in the training department we can teach you better in the simulator than we can in the actual airplane and that's true because for example you can do things like have system failures you can't do that on the airplane you don't go out and saw the hydraulic lines in two but you can do that in the simulator same thing with fires and various mechanical failures that you can do in the simulator that she couldn't do without danger in doing it on an airplane so it was better the technological advancement since the early days of aviation was revolutionary in the planes and simulators and air traffic control towers and computers brought just as an amazing transformation in customer service it's been a long time since passengers had to wait for all the other reservation requests to be collected and counted to find out if they'd gotten on a flight airline computer systems first designed in the early 70s could keep a running total for all flights and provide immediate answers an airline's computer system would become as valuable as any plane it could put into the air especially after 1978 when congress deregulated the industry and changed all the rules for much of their history airlines had been treated by the government like public utilities it was thought an extensive and safe national air service could not be left to the free market the civil aeronautics board told airlines where they could fly and how much they could charge a passenger couldn't shop for bargain prices or wait for special deals on a lot of flights there were basically two choices the expensive seats and the really expensive seats and a lot of them were empty it was in that regulated world that future ceo bill compton came to work for twa as a jet pilot one of my remembrance of the regulated days was flying a 707 one night where we went from san francisco to l.a that segment made sense and you could sell tickets there but the next segment was la to baltimore and this flight was leaving late at night to arrive in baltimore at six in the morning and i remember on that particular flight we had three people on board this was a 707 that had north of 150 seats in the airplane but that's where you flew and the fair was set after 1978 the business of flying the prices roots schedules it was all thrown into the open market the big airlines were on their own i think it forced all of the carriers to develop a different form of management style in order to because all of a sudden they're thrown into the profit-making market so to speak when they didn't really have any experience with that without the old restrictions a regional airline or a new startup could fly into an airport and challenge bigger airlines with no frill low-priced flights if the big airlines weren't ready for deregulation the public was successful airlines would be those that served both the briefcase and the backpack business and everyone in between it required a completely new way of scheduling flights and setting fares it meant new kinds of routes and new kinds of planes in many ways twa was stuck doing things the old way twa had not reinvested in itself in the 1970s and did not have a fleet that was ready for deregulation it did not have a root structure that was ready for deregulation other carriers did have root structures that were more ready more ready for deregulation in other words they had started building what we now know is hubs which tdba did not have back then tdba had a linear route network so no we were not ready the airline did begin to develop hub operations in st louis and new york but it was losing ground its parent company trans world corporation had bought up hotel and restaurant chains and vending machine and real estate companies in 1983 it decided what it didn't want was an airline twa was spun off and left weak and vulnerable it had its planes its roots its computer system and its famous name but by the 1980s there were times and places where that could work against you they wrote the hijacker has pulled a pin on his hand grenade he will land at beirut he is desperate okay you have no permission to land by route airport the airport is closed pan am and twa were american flag carriers that had been throughout the year uh throughout the middle east and the world for so many decades that we were very obvious to uh terrorists and it was kind of a normal thing to expect that to happen or to anticipate that as a possibility it was just another thing a danger that was lurking out there and we had several incidents of hijackings in the middle east one was out of athens and into beirut john testrake was the captain and that was quite an ordeal for everyone involved one passenger was killed by the hijackers but the twa crew was praised for its cool handling of the crisis and they probably prevented more from being killed twa was still one of the premier world airways but by this time its reputation was far stronger than its finances at the same time this was going on there was a battle back home over who was going to take over twa frank lorenzo was an experienced airline executive who was strongly opposed by the unions carl icahn was known as a corporate raider who bought companies and then sold them off piece by piece after a long battle it was icon who got control of twa in 1985. he kept saying he was not there to tear it apart but to save the airline and run it right if that was true he wasn't the first millionaire businessman attracted to the idea of owning his own airline howard hughes i think did did this for another reason um he was a pilot he loved airplanes he liked to fly and i think it was the romance that brought howard hughes to it though i'm sure you know he's focused on on making some money and he did make some money as well but the romance of it all appealed to a howard hughes carl icahn was attracted to making money i mean that was his goal and objective he he wasn't enamored with airplanes or people that work on airplanes but he was enamored with the idea of of making money and he was able to make some money with twa as howard hughes was but i think howard hughes probably enjoyed the experience i don't know that carl icahn did icon said all twa needed was good management and he started cutting costs and demanding and getting concessions from the unions but i'll tell you one thing we don't get these concessions i know this airline will bleed to death well there's no point buying airplanes when every airplane i'm going to buy is going to lose me money i mean it just makes no sense i'm not going to buy airplanes to lose money i will only buy them if i can be competitive and i can only be competitive if i get concessions he strengthened twa st louis hub by buying ozark airlines in 1986 but that also added more old planes to twa's fleet and more debt there were bitter labor disputes employee morale suffered and service was getting worse icon would say he saved twa his critics would say he nearly killed it in 1991 he started selling off twa's profitable routes into london's heathrow airport to many long time employees he was giving away the airline's past and future for some quick cash when tdba was taken private by carl icahn it was mathematically impossible to make money mathematically impossible and so the assets were sold and it wasn't just jfk to london but tdba served baltimore to london philadelphia london boston to london chicago to london la to london san francisco to london it was a hugely profitable and valuable part of the franchise and when london was sold what happened then was the appeal of the rest of the european network was deteriorated in 1993 icon was out leaving with money in his pocket and the airline in bankruptcy in exchange for even more concessions twa employees gained 45 ownership of their company with creditors owning the rest it had been 15 years since deregulation and no one knew if twa would be flying from one day to the next oh yeah we were great airlines still are really but we sure have suffered that's for sure you know it seemed that but ever since i was with twa it was always broke you know so many of the airplanes well it seems like this is power for the cars we can bring your seat back forward all the way it's just a little bit back great thank you okay ma'am do we have yours do you have your seatbelt on great thank you okay at the end of the century at age 75 twa was still around it wasn't profitable and wasn't the airline it had once been but there were signs that this airline was determined to be a contender ladies and gentlemen like to welcome you to st for your safety the captain requests that you remain seated with your seatbelt fasten until he has turned off the seatbelt sign for 10 years twa had the worst on time performance of the top 10 airlines and then within a three-month period in 1997 it went from being the worst to the best becoming number one again in any way was a major boost for the company's image and morale and then after decades of being unwilling or unable to invest in new equipment twa went shopping for jet planes successful airlines can tell you what their fleets can look like three years five years seven years from now tdba was a company over the last number of decades that really just didn't order airplanes they couldn't tell you what the fleet was going to look like hi how are you bill compton started with twa as a pilot in 1968 and once led his union he moved into top management after the departure of carl icahn but continued to pilot a regularly scheduled flight once a month he was like jack fry back in the 30s a boss who knew his company and airplanes from the inside the decisions twa began to make in the 1990s were as important to its future as were the decisions on the dc2 the constellation or its very first jet you know the airplane is its uh product the thing it sells i mean it's like a a department store that has the wrong clothes the wrong fashions for fall if they don't have enough if they have too many or if they have the wrong kind they're not going to do business and for air carriers it's the same thing you know you've got to have the right size airplane and it has to be there at the right time in order to service your markets and we hereby declare the deal officially done [Applause] [Music] and we would have gone from the oldest fleet in the industry in 1996 to the youngest fleet in the industry in 2004 so what that allows us to do is we now know how many airplanes we're going to have in 2003 2005 2007 so now you can do some strategic planning building to that building to that fleet plan thank you very much so long just six months later bill compton had a new announcement to make it nice thank you thanks for coming twa was once again going into bankruptcy at this time there would be no coming back if the government approved what was left of twa would be taken over by american airlines for twa this is a day of both excitement and sadness sadness because we're starting a process that will culmate in the retirement of the oldest and proudest name in u.s airline industry it is our hope that americans can take what tdba has started and make it a little bit better plane from new york and the east arriving 420 on time [Applause] in the early days of flight the challenge was getting a machine off the ground controlling it in the air and bringing it down in one piece flying was a dream come true making it work as a business was a harsh reality the history of aviation even twas is filled with mergers acquisitions and company names and logos no longer used at the very start of the 21st century twa was one of the survivors and then suddenly but not really surprisingly the twa story began to draw to a close the airline of lindbergh frye hughes icon and compton of the tri-motor the dc-2 the constellation and the jumbo jet was about to join the list of airlines that used to be but the name twa will be remembered around the world for a long time and will always be one of the most important names in the history of aviation [Music] [Music] funding for sky high the story of twa has been provided by community america credit union for 60 years serving the community and employees of twa with investments loans and innovative financial products like 24-hour internet and telephone account access community america credit union building financial success together you

Channel: Nine PBS

Views: 524,300

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Id: ruoVjAx1W9s

Length: 57min 19sec (3439 seconds)

Published: Wed May 25 2022