Karl Icon ;-) on Yahoo news.

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3WE
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Karl Icon ;-) on Yahoo news.

Postby 3WE » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:27 pm

On 3/10/2008 at ~6:00 PM CDT, there is a video on Yahoo news of Karl Ichan saying that the US can no longer compete with Asia. I'd put a link to it, but I imagine the link will go bad pretty soon, and I cannot find a text version.

While I worry about the US's competitive ability, I cringe at this guy getting headlines.

Seems to me he did little to help an airline- can't remember the name, but the initials were TWA....Crappy planes, crummy on-time and customer service.....bankruptcy.

Somehow he sold it to the employees and there was a slow, steady fleet improvement, great improvements in customer service and decent on-time performance in spite of TWA flying from weather-sensitive hubs.

I dare say that if a freak spark on a hot night in a hot, nearly empty fuel tank hadn't happened, this airline would be alive and perhaps healthy today....Not saying that 800 CAUSED the AA buyout, but I'm sure it didn't help TWA's bottom line.

TWA is gone....Karl is still at it :(
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David Hilditch
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Re: Karl Icon ;-) on Yahoo news.

Postby David Hilditch » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:34 pm

I dare say that if a freak spark on a hot night in a hot, nearly empty fuel tank hadn't happened, this airline would be alive and perhaps healthy today....Not saying that 800 CAUSED the AA buyout, but I'm sure it didn't help TWA's bottom line.
I seriously doubt that. TWA would have disappeared sooner or later, even without the TW800 crash. It was already going downhill fast. It's pretty amazing, with hindsight, it lasted a further 5 years.

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3WE
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Re: Karl Icon ;-) on Yahoo news.

Postby 3WE » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:45 pm

I dare say that if a freak spark on a hot night in a hot, nearly empty fuel tank hadn't happened, this airline would be alive and perhaps healthy today....Not saying that 800 CAUSED the AA buyout, but I'm sure it didn't help TWA's bottom line.
I seriously doubt that. TWA would have disappeared sooner or later, even without the TW800 crash. It was already going downhill fast. It's pretty amazing, with hindsight, it lasted a further 5 years.
Ok, given merger mania, I agree with you that it would not have lasted and that I was in "fantasy-land"

But "going downhill fast/amazing that it lasted 5 years????"....I may have biased memories, but I thought things were halfway OK when AA bought it out....I recall lots of flights with dang-good load factors, and pretty OK customer service....As long as STL was able to run the old LDA approaches and use two runways, the flights pretty much flew on time.

When AA bought them, there were promises of no pilot nor FA job losses, even promises of hybrid paint jobs on TWA aircraft....Of course 9/11 changed that and essentially 100% of the FA's and maybe 75% of the pilots furloughed :(
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David Hilditch
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Re: Karl Icon ;-) on Yahoo news.

Postby David Hilditch » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:59 pm

But "going downhill fast/amazing that it lasted 5 years????"....I may have biased memories, but I thought things were halfway OK when AA bought it out....I recall lots of flights with dang-good load factors, and pretty OK customer service....As long as STL was able to run the old LDA approaches and use two runways, the flights pretty much flew on time.

When AA bought them, there were promises of no pilot nor FA job losses, even promises of hybrid paint jobs on TWA aircraft....Of course 9/11 changed that and essentially 100% of the FA's and maybe 75% of the pilots furloughed :(
Load factors mean very little - it's the overall yield that counts. Icahn or no Icahn, I don't really think TWA recovered from the deregulation tsunami and the 1990/91 recession - too many Chapter 11 episodes meant they lost customer confidence and loyalties. Moreover, it was probably a mistake to withdraw so much from the more lucrative international routes they had.

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Re: Karl Icon ;-) on Yahoo news.

Postby FrankM » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:04 am

I've never been on TWA but I remember quite well back in '92/'93 people had an extremely low opinion of them. Common word was to rather spend a few bucks more to avoid them.

However, there is certainly a bit of ironing if Icahn presents himself "concerned" ...
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David Hilditch
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Re: Karl Icon ;-) on Yahoo news.

Postby David Hilditch » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:10 am

I've never been on TWA but I remember quite well back in '92/'93 people had an extremely low opinion of them. Common word was to rather spend a few bucks more to avoid them.

However, there is certainly a bit of ironing if Icahn presents himself "concerned" ...
I yield to no-one in my admiration of TWA in the good old days. I flew TWA regularly between about 1978 and 1986. They were the airline that first carried me across the Atlantic. However, like many others, we gave up on both TWA and Pan American around the mid-1980s in favor of either European carriers or the other American carriers who supplanted the old TWA/Pan Am duopoly.

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Re: Karl Icon ;-) on Yahoo news.

Postby L driver » Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:35 pm

The Karabu deal made it impossible for TWA to be profitable in the 90s. They were losing an estimated $150 a year because of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA


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