FirstClass! From , joined today!, posts, RR: Posted (9 years 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 307 times:
TWA Plans to End Lease on Terminal at New York's JFK
New York, Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Trans World Airlines Inc. plans to let its lease lapse on a terminal at New York's JFK International Airport that it no longer uses, cutting its costs and giving other airlines a chance to move in.
UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and JetBlue Airways Corp., a new New York City-based discount carrier, are among those that may move in. United is considering spending $240 million to $340 million to shift its operations to the terminal, one of 10 at JFK, and improve the space.
TWA will drop its month-to-month lease on Terminal 6 in October, said Chief Executive Bill Compton. The eighth-largest U.S. carrier subleases about half the terminal's 12 gates to other airlines.
``That building had a negative cash flow of $800,000 a month -- that's real money,'' Compton said in an interview.
TWA revamped JFK's Terminal 5 and has moved its operations to that terminal in recent years. Terminal 5 will remain the St. Louis-based airline's gateway for flights to Europe, the Caribbean and the Middle East.
TWA, which has been struggling to recover from bankruptcies earlier this decade and to turn a profit, only now is able to end the lease, because of a new labor contract it signed in June with the Machinists union.
``The old (labor) contract had a lot of those concrete blocks attached to our ankles,'' Compton said.
Proposed Move
United has preliminary plans to move all its operations to Terminal 6 from Terminal 7 and to occupy at least nine, spokeswoman Susana Leyva said. The new facilities are scheduled to be running by 2002 under its plan, which has tentative approval from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Leyva said.
Chicago-based United, which now subleases part of Terminal 6 for U.S. flights, expects final approval this month. The authority's next meeting is Sept. 30, though the agenda hasn't been set, said authority spokesman Bill Cahill.
JetBlue Airways plans to initially use two gates in Terminal 6 and later increase to six, Chief Executive David Neeleman said. JetBlue expects to start in late January or early February with 10 planes flying to 12 cities from JFK.
The port authority said last month that it expected a public- private partnership, largely funded by airlines, to spend about $9.3 billion to redevelop JFK in the next several years.
FirstClass! comment:
You can tell TWA is trying hard to churn a profit. I'm glad TWA made this move. They hardly occupied T6.
Fly US Airways From , joined today!, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (9 years 4 days 22 hours ago) and read 188 times:
About a month ago I travelled thru JFK from TWA T5 to ATA T4 for a charter flight to ATH/IST. The flight was delayed, so I was stuck at JFK for about 11 hours! I took the time to explore the terminals.
TWA didn't operate any flights out of T6. UAL used a few gates for B767 service to LAX and SFO, AWA has a gate or two, and that was about it. The lobby area of T6 was Utopia compared to the mayhem at T4. I went and sat at some comfortable seats at the cool and quiet T6 lobby area instead of the mayhem of T4.
Quick Question: UAL seemed to have a lot of more planes at T6 than a few 767s go the LAX/SFO. Yet the check-in counter says only for flights to LAX/SFO. Is it possible that passengers check-in at T7 for other flights departing from T6?
Also, JFK was hard for spotting because you can't get to the gate areas unless you are holding a ticket. Our ATA ticket wouldn't get us thru. So, you could just see planes from the roadways and lobby check-in areas.
NYC Int'l From , joined today!, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (9 years 4 days 16 hours ago) and read 166 times:
You know now that I think about it, in order for TW to make its JFK operation worthwile they may have to eventually conscede their own terminal(T5) to new ownership and just maintain the necessary number of gates they need to operate.
FLY777UAL From United States, joined May 1999, 4482 posts, RR: 4 Reply 7, posted (9 years 4 days 16 hours ago) and read 166 times:
Naa...just burn that sucker down, and then they can live off the insurance money. They can put a tent up in T5's place! (one of those really nice looking ones!)
Varsity From United States, joined Aug 1999, 133 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (9 years 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 160 times:
Cody: Yes that is Terminal 5. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places because of its unique "Jetsons" design which was trés chic in the ´sixties, but now that - and the fact that TWA never has two dimes to rub together - prevents them from doing any major renovations to it. It is a requirement of the National Register that you keep historic buildings pretty much as they were originally designed, which would preclude TWA from modernising it much. It is hard to have something be part museum and part busy airline terminal.
It sorely needs to be renovated or replaced because it was designed for a small fraction of the people who end up using it each day.
If TWA had money, the only solution that would satisfy everybody would be to make the current building into a landside area and build a new, long airside building in place of the current satellites (sort of similar to the way to the way T-6 is laid out) with the arrival roadway curving around behind it. If you moved all the baggage claims, gates and stuff to the new building there might be enough room in the current terminal for a decent number of check-in positions, the bar and restaurant. Is there enough ramp space to support such a building?
I thought that TWA was pretty much using all the available gate time at Terminal 5, I don't know how many fewer gates they could live with.
Terminal 6 is pleasant, if dated. I was a regular there when Pan Am II was a tenant. I wonder if it is due to be renovated.
By the way, the press release implied that TWA used to be only in Terminal 6 and moved to Terminal 5 recently. In reality, Terminal 5 was TWA's original terminal when it was built. Terminal 6 was built for National Airlines (I) and was held by Pan Am for a time after they merged.
I have long though that the best plan for JFK would be to demolish all the facilities from 1 to 7 one terminal at a time, and build one contiguous terminal like MIA and SFO. In the interest of preservation, I suppose the Saarinen-designed part of Terminal 5 could be left as a sort of centrepiece. Inefficient or not, it is a neat design.
Twa747100 From United States, joined May 1999, 597 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (9 years 4 days 1 hour ago) and read 146 times:
NYC Int'l,flyual777
SHAME IN YOU!!! (although it dose need to be replaced) arson is no way to do anything. Tisk tisk!
And for those of you who have traveled trough t6~
One of the best memories to my airport life has to be walking out of that terminal thought those big glass doors into the cold air with the wonderful smell of kerosene in the air!
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