TWA

Trans World Airlines, commonly known as TWA, was a major American airline company that was acquired by American Airlines in April 2001. For many years it was headquartered at the Kansas City Downtown Airport, as well as midtown Manhattan in New York City. more...

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At the time of its buyout, it was headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, and used Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport, as its major hub. TWA once shared the U.S. international air market with fellow pioneer Pan American World Airways.

Early history

On May 1, 1930, Western Air Express, with Harris "Pop" Hanshue as President, acquired the successful Standard Airlines, subsidiary of Aero Corp. of California founded in 1926 by Jack Frye, Paul E. Richter and Walter Hamilton (known as "The Three Musketeers of Aviation"). Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA) emerged in October 1930, with Hanshue as the first President, when Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown, under President Herbert Hoover, forced Western Air Express and Transcontinental Air Transport (T-A-T) to merge in order to get an air mail contract. This became known as the Air Mail Scandal. Transcontinental was the bigger of the two airlines and had the marquee expertise of Charles Lindbergh and economic power of founder Clement Melville Keys (chairman of airplane manufacturer Curtiss-Wright), while Western Air was the slightly older line (founded in July 13, 1925). They agreed to merge on July 16, 1930. The newly merged company's headquarters was in Kansas City, Missouri.

Transcontinental in 1929 had initiated a 48-hour cross country train and plane route with a stopover in Kansas City. The merged airline offered a plane-only cross country trip, inaugurated October 25, 1930, called the Lindbergh Route. The route took 36 hours coast to coast that initially also called for overnights in Kansas City.

Golden era

Jack Frye, Paul E. Richter, Walter Hamilton

In 1931 Jack Frye, Paul E. Richter and Walter Hamilton transitioned into TWA through Western Air Express and their Standard Airlines.

The airline nearly went out of business in the wake of the 1931 crash of TWA Flight 599 from Kansas City to Wichita that killed University of Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne. On May 4, 1931, the U.S. Department of Commerce grounded all Fokker F-10s, the type of aircraft involved in the Rockne crash.

On May 20, 1931, Northrop Alpha service started from Los Angeles to Newark.

TWA relocated from New York to Kansas City, Mo., in summer 1931.

Keys left the aviation business in 1932 when government regulation forced aircraft builders to divest themselves of airline subsidiaries.

Read more at Wikipedia.org