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Imagine my surprise when a leveraged buyout leads to a windfall for the scammer and a bankrupt company. It really should be illegal

One big component left out of this video is the MCI debacle. TWA was headquartered in Kansas City, a decision made by Hughes due to its convenient location in the middle of the country, and the Connie's ability to reach K.C. from anywhere in the lower 48 without refueling.

In the early 70s, TWA cajoled the Kansas City municipal government and the state of Missouri to replace the cramped, downtown airport with a new, state of the art one beyond the suburbs. The airline built a huge maintenance facility there and insisted on a new, drive-to-your-gate terminal design comprised of 3 circular terminals. The government wouldn't pay for any transit system to connect the 3 cloverleaves together, and the narrow space between the landside doors and the gates left insufficient space for a 747 worth of passengers or an appropriately sized luggage carousel. TWA requested the terminals be rebuilt to a more conventional design within a year, but the government balked. That's when TWA moved its hub operations to St. Louis. Maintenance remained at MCI though, so 747s and L1011s would fly empty from STL to MCI and back.

Kansas City finally replaced its cloverleaf terminals just a few years ago, but by then the damage was done. MCI is merely a regional airport with huge hangars.

On a side note, TWA also had their cabin crew training facility in the suburbs of KC, and it was so good, other airlines sent their newly hired flight attendants to TWA's school.

Carl Icahn represents what is so bad about leveraged buyouts. They almost never end well for the companies and their thousands of employees.  Now one can argue that it's capitalism in action but it's the tax laws that burden legitimate businesses while at the same time make these leveraged deals so lucrative. That's not free capitalism. It's putting the finger on the scale in favor of raiders and banks.

In 1959 I flew as a passenger from Japan to New York on two amazing aircraft.  Japan to California in a USAF C-121, an Air Force Super Constellation, with stops at Wake Island and Hawaii.  From California to New York on a brand new TWA Boeing 707.  A flight from the pinnacle of commercial piston engine to the whole new realm of jet age travel.

My dad was a pilot with TWA his entire career and my mom was a flight attendant (until she was a mother). I have so many memories of flying TWA to Europe and even more stories from both my mom and dad's careers. My godparents too were TWA. My godfather was F/O during a horrible hijacking where the plane was blown up, but he and the passengers survived. My dad managed to retire in 1996 but we did not know if TWA would make it to his retirement. Icahn was a horrible end to a great airline and an era.  TWA was an experience that has never been matched to this day. I still have Royal Ambassador First Class Kits! Anyway, I Love your channel. I think I have watched every Mentour, YouTube production!

As a sales rep for TWA, I often flew the jump seat in constellations from Chicago to New York with charters that I had sold. Add that to the dozens of trips back to Europe on our Jets with proud crews, fabulous meals and wonderful service. It was THE place to work for a young man in the industry and I was so proud to work with  them. Because I travel free on other airlines as well as on TWA, I had a chance to compare our service with the competition. Believe me, we were the best.

Interesting fact:
TWA had a large order for the Airbus A318, and had they not closed, the baby bus may have succeeded after all

I've heard that when AA took over, TWA was still doing route and revenue planning on paper while other carriers had been using computers for years.

leveraged buyouts should be illegal. The debt should stay with the buyer, and not be passed onto the company being bought.

Whatever one eccentric billionaire can create, another narcissistic and greedy billionaire can easily destroy.

Carl Icahn is an icon of predatory capitalism.

Greedy short sighted CEOs can ruin anything.

17:23 TWA livery on a 747-8 is interesting…

I flew on TWA many times on business trips and a few times on Pan Am. I much preferred the experience on TWA. I remember one time on TWA that they were pouring a good California red wine - I think a cabernet. I noticed that on the return transcontinental flight the wine tasted better than the one coming from California. I asked the flight attendant if the bottle had been open for a while. She said yes, that they had been cooking with it in the galley. She asked if something was wrong with it. I told her that it tasted better because it had some time to breath after opening. Over the course of the flight all the first class flight attendants came to chat with me about wine. That was great fun.

Best flight I ever had was TWA Madrid to Azores, to New York.  1960 there was an ad in Life that showed a nickel balanced on its edge on a TWA 707.  So I did that on this flight, and from level after the Azores to start of decent to New York that nickel stayed balanced on our First Class between seat table.  The pilots kept coming back to see the coin and check that it was not glued down.  I was then invited to see the Cockpit operations, and I rode the jump seat all the way to landing.  Now that was really great, and I got to ride the copilots seat for about an hour to just before they had to prepare for landing and the pilot gave me instructions on how to do the landing.  Those were some really great times that will never return as the world has gone crazy.

One of the most memorable airline flights I ever took was on a TWA L-1011 from STL to LAX.  Steak dinner with wine in standard coach seating which was much more spacious and comfortable than anything on airliners today.

I still got tons of TWA swag from decades ago from relatives who flew for TWA from silverware ,playing cards ,pens ,pencils, pads ,model planes ,large display planes & clothing, TWA was a cool nostalgic airline

TWA's departure from the skies left a huge void from my childhood. We used either TWA or Olympic Airways as our bridge to my parents homeland of Greece through the 70's - 90's. I miss them more than any other airline right now.

So in short : nothing's too big to fail.