St Louis TWA Overload (1998)

[@cityofabscissae]

What beautiful variety! Boeing 727s, 757s, 767s; Douglas DC-9s and MD-80s. Those were the best days of aviation in my opinion.

[@flyjet787]

That is the year I left TWA for greener pastures. This video makes TWA look like a thriving airline. If it had been, I would have stayed. But it had been bankrupt twice within 6 years of this video. We had taken 3 pay/benefit cuts in the same time period. I was on 24/7 call from 1990 to 1998 - I never held a real schedule. I'd been laid off 3 times (91-96). My mom worked in Revenue Control / Capacity Management and was privy to the real financial state of the airline. We teetered so close to closing the doors so many times - I was sick of worrying every day that we would go under. Go under they did, 3 years after I started working for a viable airline. Great video btw. Brings back a lot of memories (not all bad lol).

[@crjetpilot]

Working for the airlines has taught me to live in the moment, enjoy the party while it lasts, and to live within my means! I started with an airline that had strong balance sheets and all it takes is a hostile takeover or management change to flush it down the tubes! (We had both happen to us, and of course the pay/benefits cuts, while top management rakes in millions of dollars in bonuses!) Now all that’s left of that chapter is great memories, and a handful of lifetime friends. I still see some of our old planes flying in another paint scheme (old TWA ones, too!) and it makes me smile to think of the good times!

[@Wolff13]

I always tell my younger coworkers: tomorrow is not promised.

[@that90skid72]

Your testimony is highly valuable, as someone who lived that all from the inside. Indeed, when we see TW ads from the late 1990s it looks like they're getting better, getting a new fleet new livery etc etc. Another video with JFK's T5 during TWA operations tends to prove your experience: we see totally outdated 1980s computers (vid is from 2001...), the aircraft and the terminal all looked totally worn as well.

[@EM-od6gu]

My dad flew for American until he recently retired. He was not happy about the TWA people coming over after the buyout. As for me I have flown TWA several times as a kid before I got “passes” with AA. Even flew the new 767-200 in 85 from Gatwick to Saint Louis.

[@that90skid72]

TWA's last livery was really beautiful

[@tonyde52]

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL and STUNNINGLY elegant. What a SHAME!

[@raphaelmiguelbalon9226]

The twin globes and this last livery are my favorites.

[@rajnirvan3336]

I liked it too.

[@packer812]

I used to fly TWA from LGW to LAX via STL all the time in the 80's and 90's. Good airline with great service. I miss them!

[@tony314ful]

St. Louis needs to be a hub again

[@frankgrimesification]

Why? You have ORD, MDW, MSP, and DTW to the north and DFW and IAH to the south. While I miss TWA as much as the next guy, the landscape is much different now then it was 20 years ago and a hub in the neighborhood of STL isn't really needed now.

[@drewski1535]

Southwest should make it they're hub

[@Lee247Jamaica]

@@drewski1535 yh

[@HellbenderSTL]

Still true.

[@naffhf]

​@@drewski1535 Southwest doesn't really operate on a hub model.

[@aviationvideos]

Great views of TWA Aircraft at St Louis and a great selection of aircraft types and closeups. I remember filming there myself.

[@johnredhd]

I loved TWA. I used to fly through St. Louis all the time. I miss them.

[@TWATWA-qy4zn]

Thank you.

[@loveicken]

I absolutely miss TWA and the STL hub also! Those were the fun days of flying and travel !

[@Magnus_Magnusson_702]

Always considered TWA a flag carrier we could be proud of! I think they were close to being the largest airline in the world at one point! I miss OZARK too!!

[@grahamrothphotography]

when st louis had a busy airport!

[@ximenoworks]

Thru the 80's and 90's. After AA bought TWA. AA pilots did not like how the rapid pace of take off and landings were done. AA pilots did a lot of wave offs and wanted less ground traffic than what TWA pilots was use too. STL tower said at one time Lambert had one of the busiest runway in the country. It was the one closest to the terminal. The movie Up In the Air was film at Lambert.

[@johnfarr2738]

Graham Roth the one time I flew TWA was August of 1996 from DCA to STL on a 737 and then from STL to Honolulu on a 747.

[@RampGuy1]

TWA never had any 737's.

[@slaamin]

I worked in the Control Tower at Lambert from 1984 to 2009, Loved TWA!!

[@wyoboy01]

20 years later and those liveries still hold up.

[@GothamStatePolice]

I'd say they look better than many modern ones.

[@markh4906]

This is how I like to remember STL.

[@assaultislove]

Back when St Louis was actually an important and relevant city. Those days are long gone. I remember changing planes in STL in 1993 and was surprised at how busy the airport was

[@csiel]

Yes back in the 80's and 90's Lambert Airport was the place to be--it was jumpin'! There were lots of 747's, 757's, 767's along with the DC-9's. Nowdays Southwest with it 737's has brought it back a little but its still nowhere near what it was.

[@clausstimpfig3803]

@@csiel Southwest is nothing compared to T.W.A.

[@Texas80]

I am in love with the MD-80. So sad to see them going away.

[@MrDieselOnly]

I wish some carrier like JetBlue would recognize the value of the location of St Louis and that great wide open class B airspace and open a base there. JetBlue needs a base in the midwest and St Louis is the best candidate. Lots of room to grow in STL! #jetblue

[@ryanhilliard1620]

It really is a perfect set-up. Right in the middle of the country. Places like DFW and Minneapolis are very inconvenient for most travelers.

[@zolson95]

sad to be reminded that Lambert was actually busy

[@stitch-xx2oo]

Does SW keep STL busy any?

[@jtheriot51]

Amen to that!!!!

[@markh4906]

@@stitch-xx2oo SWA is what keeps STL alive.

[@stitch-xx2oo]

Thanks!!!!

[@99carnot]

Great video, but very sad how TWA ended.

[@KenPryor]

What a cool video! When I was a kid, I always wanted to fly on a TWA 727 but I never got the chance. I miss TWA and heavy traffic from them at KSTL.

[@fabrizioaversa6249]

Greetings from Italy Ken.

[@WilliamPotts3]

The end of the golden era of aviation. Turbulent times in the years to follow. I flew some converted TWA 767-200 freighters at my airline for a while. We called them the “tuna cans”. Because they should’ve been turned into cans years ago. Fun flying though. Steel brakes, almost full rudder trim to keep them pointed straight sometimes. The hum and vibration of out of sync Pratt JT-9Ds with bad autothrottles. Often deferred thrust management computers. Everyday on the tuna cans was a new and exciting adventure. Each tail had its own quirky “personality “

[@jeffreydeeds9225]

Miss those days!

[@SwordSweeper127]

I'd love to see TWA come back but sadly this is not possible

[@Magnus_Magnusson_702]

I remember Lambert as a kid, it was a huge international airport with tons of people coming and going, traffic jams, all these concourses and everything was all jammed up all the time...lol I miss those days!!

[@eyestoenvy]

The final livery was GORGEOUS ....

[@anthonynarozniak1875]

My father worked for TWA for 45 years and I worked for them for 22 years, both of us at JFK ... And I miss every single day flying for one of the greatest airlines

[@loaferguy73]

Nice, nice! Would have been even better if it were recorded months earlier as we probably would have seen 747's retired Feb '98 and L-1011's retired Sep '97! None the less nice!

[@seanmurphy243]

I would have loved to see a TWA 777... I wish they were still around!

[@raphaelmiguelbalon9226]

Same!

[@GStasinopoulos]

very smooth landings...I came in the country on TWA's flight 847 back in the summer of '84

[@justplanecrazy5575]

Twa needs to come back.

[@nel1962]

Great video! Thought sure I’d see at least one L1011.

[@jeffhaines07]

Loved going to Lambert Field back in the day and sitting off Lindbergh Blvd and watching the planes fly overhead on final approach on runway 12R and 12L, especially the L-1011's and 727's. TWA just became too big and too much: planes, flights, employees, etc. It was ridiculous some of the flights leaving Lambert and the regularity at which they left. Some small cities would have 5, 6 or even 7 TWA flights daily. Bad management by the executives, the union and the city of St. Louis over the span of 2 decades. Very Sad. Glad AA tried to keep it somewhat going, but inevitably AA made the right decision and shutdown the hub here. Airport isn't managed correctly and the new runway was a bad idea and is completely useless(too far from terminals, especially for SWA).

[@evanunderwood4643]

magnificent video. nice tribute to the best airline of the united states. sad to see it disappear and also to make lambert field become a ghost town and an airport full of junk airlines

[@vikashkittu2598]

evan underwood u

[@DieseldutyLovesJesus]

Stl. Never recovered from the loss of TWA

[@essel23fly]

I can’t believe Stl used to be that busy. Been flying in an out of there for years now and I wouldn’t believe it could be busy.

[@jeffreymyers3395]

I'm certainly no expert at managing an airline, but I was the Snap-on Dealer at LAX and sold tools to the TWA mechanics, and heard lots of "shop talk" about some of the bone headed stuff management did. One of the huge warning signs was the incredible number of parts that weighed them down. They had so much money in replacement parts it drained their maintenance budgets. This video is proof of that- just look at all the different aircraft taking off and landing. There are Boeing 777, 767, 757, 727's, Douglas DC9's, and they still had Lockheed L-1011's and had Boeing 747's just retired. Engines used were Pratt & Whitneys, General Electrics, and Rolls Royce's. It is like their aircraft buyers had to have everything, and could not pass up a chance to own whatever the latest airplanes became available. When you compare Southwest that flies only Boeing 737's, to TWA, that flies everything, you get an idea what those TWA mechanics were talking about. I agree that TWA demise was because of terrible management.

[@GamingWithSpeed]

Jeffrey Myers they never flew the 777

[@randym8185]

Carl Lindner

[@garricksl]

TWA was a legacy airline. You can't fly 737 on most international route. TWA was a big airline and thank Carl Ichan for demise.

[@flyjet787]

No 777's. They never had the credit or cash to finance a 777 purchase. Sadly.

[@jayreiter268]

@@garricksl Thank Smart & Myers for draining TWA money into Into TWA corporation. Carl just took the scraps.

[@ryans6280]

Still love the L1011 one of my all time faves

[@skipcampbell4226]

I remember flying through there in the late80s early 90s. That place hopping! TWA everywhere! An easy 300 plus flights a day! Maybe more. When the weather would break down they were screwed. The two parallel runways were to close to land 2 planes at the same time. Which definitely complicated things for TWA.

[@AdventureswithaaronB]

Interestingly enough, one of those Boeing 757 is still flying for Delta

[@gary6137]

STL was the 6th busiest airport in the 80's. The traffic used to be constant.

[@neurospizz75]

miss those guys

[@wendyw8931]

I really miss TWA! It was a great airline. Every flight I took was almost perfect.

[@tyronegary9409]

those where the days

[@christopherhennessey8991]

Those were the best looking 767-200s in that particular TWA livery. The next best looking were the American 767s in the tri color livery. However, I wish American would’ve stuck with The Silva Rutter as opposed to the gray rudder.

[@yahatinda]

A FRIEND OF MINE, LARRY COSGROVE FLEW FOR TW.WE BOTH STARTED FLYING THE SAME DAY AT ZAHNS

[@Mets747]

What a great video!

[@frankgrimesification]

I always enjoyed the TWA tea.

[@flyjet787]

The 8 years I worked for them (90-98) we used Liptons. About as unfancy as it gets.

[@procksomaterman]

Damn! how meany gates did TWA have here?

[@loserplaysleague3943]

Critter Take AA's amount ( 7 total after US merger), then multiply that by 8. (56 is just from a count I took off a 1996 timetable, that actually feels a little low though). This included two Airline Clubs, Daily flights to London and Paris (the latter went from seasonal to yearly sometime in 97 I think), flights to Anchorage, Honolulu, and Maui. There was even a flight to Tokyo planned in 2000 (It was postponed and cancelled by AA), and a planed flight to Frankfurt ( Also AA cancelled). So the short answer is about 60 gates.

[@aphotographerfromcaliforni2661]

2:03 I spy some Desert Gold

[@tonydegiuseppe9484]

TWA was

[@kj9889]

this is a great video

[@drewski1535]

The one thing I'd give anything to being a kid again is the chance to travel on planes as much as I did those were the fun times when airports were awesome to travel to, I wish I'd seen St Louis Airport as a kid I did however enjoy EWR and MCO alot as a kid. That was back when airports were big but not super big, i saw EWR in 2009 and it looks like a NJ version of Kennedy i miss the old airports

[@goodfella2400]

T-tail paradise! And to think 717’s were soon on the way.

[@nateweter4012]

Take me back…

[@KingSlimjeezy]

God damn the memories To believe North County was once the literal center of the Aeronautics Universe And now...

[@clausstimpfig3803]

great Video when STL was still an airport

[@bryantbridgewaters7177]

Anybody remember those weird shuttle busses with the funny looking towers on top? They used to take you from one terminal to the other.

[@aircerodoce]

0:50 cuteee

[@andrealuvshouse]

Nothing but 737s, regional jets and GA now. I live here and planespot at Lambert a lot. Nothing exciting to see. The formerly packed B gates are now deserted. TWA used to have pretty much all of Concourse B. Now, nothing. I can wait for an hour and see maybe 6 departures and 6 landings and they’re mostly all SWA 737s. I honestly think SWA is the only airline keeping Lambert open.

[@AccessAir]

Is this video available?

[@justplanes]

It sure is... check the description for a link or just go to our justplanes.com website.. its in the download store.

[@frankgrimesification]

I'm a big fan of TWA tea!

[@DatamasterCorporation]

At this point in time, TWA was in a terrible financial state of affairs. They had been bleeding money long before this even. Looks can be deceiving, looks like a healthy company from the viewers eyes, and the passengers who were flying them then. The employees and the fleet were suffering badly. If it weren't for the past fumbles on their part, they might have survived to absorb more liverys, possibly even American.

[@orlandoplanespotter2456]

Is twa out of business

[@JustinLHopkins]

Yes.

[@Maheshapg3321]

Yes,bankrupt in 2001

[@mfrerkes]

I watch this video and it just reinforces my belief why airline mergers shouldn't have been allowed to happen on the scale they did. Continental. Piedmont. America West. Northwest. TWA. Eastern. Western. Pan Am. All gone. It's a travesty, and the passengers have to had to suffer with increasingly lousy service.

[@cameraman655]

Was in STL a few weeks back, sad to see the ghost town that AA turned it into.TW certainly had it's issues, however it was a sad day when one of America's more illustrious and historic carriers ceased to be as well as for St Louis.

[@CyrusOG666]

The only thing overloaded was probably their debt!

[@TWTR4EVER]

No B747 & no L1011's they were all in JFK or were they all parked at the Mojave?

[@rajnirvan3336]

If TWA still existed would have wondered what would've been in their fleet in terms of long haul planes.

[@tony314ful]

These days Lamberd field is not plane spotting friendly👎

[@MrCzechers]

Damn I miss the old TWA. Next to Pan Am, they had the hottest stewardesses!

[@jaidhillon3066]

Why does twa have the same old logo in 1998

[@pedrornunes96]

Why not? :D

[@HNT63]

Very nice

[@KiddBloo86]

When STL had a legit reason for the buyout.

[@TheBudgetGunCollector]

STL has the TWA

[@tonyde52]

As beautiful as this video is; it makes me extremely sad. Now all we have are 3 major carriers; and a handfull of junky low cost parasite airlines.

[@db90990]

I flew on "Transamerica" from St Louis to Osan AB Korea on June 30, 1981 it was a grand experience but had I my choice, I'd have taken TWA, providing they flew to South Korea 🇰🇷

[@paulnobleii4239]

I feel so sorry for those guys, they got fucked so hard and it is a shame there is penance or retribution for them. It is unfortunately just business 😔😔

[@pengmang-l9t]

Make Ameri ca great once Again God Bless America

[@YourselfAndEye]

AA buys TWA for the St. Louis hub. A few years later they decide they didnt even need it. Lays everyone off. ..Dont fly AA.

[@johniii8147]

T Abel many were recalled. 911 changed everything in the airline industry. TWA was going to be shut down either way.

[@flyjet787]

1) 5 months after AA took control of TWA, the 9/11 attacks occured. 2) AA kept nearly all of TWA's employees, though they weren't obligated to. 3) After 9/11 ALL legacy airlines laid off employees and most went into bankruptcy. 4) AA has recalled ALL laid off employees. 5) AA wanted some of TWA's limited assets. One was an STL hub to releve East/West flying in Chicago and Dallas. That became unnecessary after the massive drop in demand following 9/11. At any rate, this all happened close to 20 years ago and all airlines have evolved in different ways and are controlled by different leaderships today.

[@004SV]

Wow 🏁🏁🛩🛩✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️🛩🛩🛩🏡🏡🏡🏡🏡🏡🏡🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️. out side watching all the time 90s seen it all .

[@AhlixL]

So many Mad Dogs!

[@johniii8147]

AhlixL nothing compared to what Dallas use to have

[@andrealuvshouse]

Nothing but 737s, regional jets and GA now. I live here and planespot at Lambert a lot. Nothing exciting to see. The formerly packed B gates are now deserted. TWA used to have pretty much all of Concourse B. Now, nothing. I can wait for an hour and see maybe 6 departures and 6 landings and they’re mostly all SWA 737s. I honestly think SWA is the only airline keeping Lambert open.