Trans World Airlines (TWA)

Trans World Airlines (TWA) was an American airline from 1925 until it was bought out by and merged with American Airlines in 2001. It was a major airline in the United States and the main U.S.-based competitor of Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) on intercontinental routes from 1946 until deregulation in 1978. TWA had hubs at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport and focus cities in Kansas City, Los Angeles, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In the 1980s it built a hub in Atlanta, reduced in the 1990s. TWA had pilot bases in Frankfurt and Berlin during the 1980s and it operated Boeing 727-100 type aircraft within Europe. The company flew intra-European routes between Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Zurich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Vienna, Amsterdam and Istanbul.

Flying to most major U.S. cities, TWA was one of the largest domestic Airlines; before deregulation TWA, American Airlines, United Airlines, and Eastern Air Lines were known as the "Big Four". It also had a feeder operation from smaller cities in the Midwestern United States. Beyond the U.S., TWA had a large European and Middle Eastern network, served from its hub, the iconic TWA Flight Center, at John F. Kennedy International Airport. For a few years its routes circumnavigated the globe. It was a secondary unofficial flag carrier for the United States, especially after Pan Am was dissolved in the early 1990s.