What equipment did TWA use on flights to Europe from STL? At its peak, did STL serve more than just CDG and LGW and were the flights daily?

I can’t seem to find any information regarding TWA’s European ops from STL.

Thanks!

I wanna say they flew STL-FRA at one time.

Two pages from Departed Flights circa 2001. I won't say that was the peak - it was the end.

http://www.departedflights.com/AA070201p84.html

http://www.departedflights.com/AA070201p82.html

They used 767s from STL to CDG, FRA and LGW

good question. i looked at departed flights, since i see lots of people recommend it, and to be honest departed flights is kind of worthless. they had a whopping 4 oag world wide flight schedules and none of them even had st louis as a destination. and that is the kicker you have to know the destination and if you do not. then departed flights can not help you. so it will not help you answer this question. i worked for TW in 92-94 and all we had for anything international on a wide body during that time (that i can recall) was CDG and LGW. all the other wide body flights where state side and of course Hawai'i. Hawai'i was the only 747 flight too.

dannynoble wrote:

i looked at departed flights, since i see lots of people recommend it, and to be honest departed flights is kind of worthless. they had a whopping 4 oag world wide flight schedules and none of them even had st louis as a destination.

Departed Flights is the project of one man who manually enteres OAG flight schedules and scans airline timetables and other ephemera. He does this in his leisure time and at his own expense. I think that it is a valuable tool, and ever second Friday there is new information on the site.

You can try Timetableimages for more resources, but those tend to be more thorough for the period prior to 1970.

I believe there were also L1011 routes to Europe from STL at one time also. I seem to recall STL-FCO be flown at some point but not 100% sure on that. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can give us an accurate list of routes/equipment.

I thought MAD and FCO were announced at one point, but never operated.

LGW was a 747 for awhile before moving to a 767. Everything else was a 767. TW's L1011's didn't have the range.

STL-HNL was also 747 used to..

Q

BigGSFO wrote:

I thought MAD and FCO were announced at one point, but never operated.

LGW was a 747 for awhile before moving to a 767. Everything else was a 767. TW's L1011's didn't have the range.

IIRC, STL-MAD was applied for, can't remember if it was approved or not. L1011 service to CDG via BOS was operated off and on, usually in the off-season when the STL-CDG route went on hiatus, at least for a couple of winters.

I'm no expert, but I had a collection of TWA timetables in the '80's ( which my Dad threw out when I went away to college, grrr) and all I ever remember from that time period was STL-LGW and STL-Paris ( probably CDG). I recall 1 stop single plane service to FRA via JFK. I'm pretty certain they only served FCO from JFK, and that was less than daily.

IAHWorldflyer wrote:

I'm no expert, but I had a collection of TWA timetables in the '80's ( which my Dad threw out when I went away to college, grrr) and all I ever remember from that time period was STL-LGW and STL-Paris ( probably CDG). I recall 1 stop single plane service to FRA via JFK. I'm pretty certain they only served FCO from JFK, and that was less than daily.

STL-FRA was served nonstop for a couple of years. I think FRA was tagged to LGW for a couple of seasons as well.

TWA introduced ETOPS in 1985 with the 767-200. I believe they were running LHR or LGW & maybe CDG in the late '80's from STL. They had the route before that so they were probably L-1011's. When the whole bank left in the afternoon, the L-1011 had an EPA kit to expend spent fuel/oil on start-up. The whole field was engulfed in smoke!

This doesn't exactly provide much more information, but this is a cool poster that was used to advertise London-STL daily on TWA:

https://timetablist.blogspot.com/2013/0 ... daily.html



Timetablist has some great stuff.

dannynoble wrote:

good question. i looked at departed flights, since i see lots of people recommend it, and to be honest departed flights is kind of worthless. they had a whopping 4 oag world wide flight schedules and none of them even had st louis as a destination.

Departed Flights, under TWA, lists a combo AA/TWA schedule effective 7/1/2001 -- less than three months after AA bought the assets. STL is very much shown as an origin for the pages I linked. Don't be confused by Saint Louis in the page listing.

TWA operated STL-LGW, STL-FRA, STL-CDG throughout its existence and at different intervals. The FRA route was on the cusp of being reinstated I believe, in the airline's last year of operation. When TWA flew to LHR and operated ORD-LHR, it would frequently schedule an L1011 and sometimes, I think a 747 to move traffic from STL to LHR via ORD.

Cointrin330 wrote:

TWA operated STL-LGW, STL-FRA, STL-CDG throughout its existence and at different intervals. The FRA route was on the cusp of being reinstated I believe, in the airline's last year of operation. When TWA flew to LHR and operated ORD-LHR, it would frequently schedule an L1011 and sometimes, I think a 747 to move traffic from STL to LHR via ORD.

TWA never flew the L-1011 to London out of the midwest United States. ORD was a 747 while STL was purely LGW and was flown using the 767s. The STL-Europe routes opened because of the ETOPS certification TWA got on the 767s which allowed Frankfurt, London (LGW) and Paris (CDG). TWA did operate the 747 between STL-LGW after the LHR route-authority was sold to American, but never the L-1011. The L-1011s were operated to Europe from the US east coast.

And now we are celebrating AA launching STL-CUN

Oh how the times change haha

This is from the September 1998 OAG for STL to Europe, just one daily flight operated by a 767-200. From JFK, however, TWA still flew to a handful of places in Europe along with flights to Saudi Arabia.

TW;818;STL;CDG;1850;1030;1234567;767
TW;819;CDG;STL;1200;1435;1234567;767

MrMD11 wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

TWA operated STL-LGW, STL-FRA, STL-CDG throughout its existence and at different intervals. The FRA route was on the cusp of being reinstated I believe, in the airline's last year of operation. When TWA flew to LHR and operated ORD-LHR, it would frequently schedule an L1011 and sometimes, I think a 747 to move traffic from STL to LHR via ORD.

TWA never flew the L-1011 to London out of the midwest United States. ORD was a 747 while STL was purely LGW and was flown using the 767s. The STL-Europe routes opened because of the ETOPS certification TWA got on the 767s which allowed Frankfurt, London (LGW) and Paris (CDG). TWA did operate the 747 between STL-LGW after the LHR route-authority was sold to American, but never the L-1011. The L-1011s were operated to Europe from the US east coast.

I never said they did. They flew an L1011 between ORD and STL to feed the ORD-LHR service, which was a 747. I realize my comment wasn't clear. STL-ORD was operated with everything from 727s, L1011s, and even a 747 to position for ORD-LHR. TWA flew the 767s on the nonstops to Europe except, as you correctly say, the 747 was used on STL-LGW briefly after the LHR slots were sold to AA.

klm617 wrote:

They used 767s from STL to CDG, FRA and LGW

They used the 747 on occasion, as well. Gates were right across from B, where I worked.

-Frankfurt: April 29, 1985, flown with 767-200ER until 1990.
-London (Gatwick): April 28, 1985 747. Shortly after it was downgraded to daily 767-200ER flights. From 1994 to 1996 it was flown with a 747 and in the summer of 1998 it was twice daily. By the end it was a daily 767-300ER flight.
-Paris: April 28, 1985 (became seasonal in the mid-90s) flown with 767-200ER.

Planned Routes:
-Frankfurt was to return May 1, 2001 with daily 767-300ER flights.
-Osaka and Tokyo were planned around 1999 with 767-200ER aircraft but never materialised.

There were rumours of Madrid and Amsterdam being added, but these never came to anything.

My grandparents flew TW STL-FRA & FRA-LGW-STL on the 762 during the Summer of 1987. The Coach menus were also postcards.

I could have sworn I flew a B747 from LGW to STL back in 1992.

FlyingElvii wrote:

klm617 wrote:

They used 767s from STL to CDG, FRA and LGW

They used the 747 on occasion, as well. Gates were right across from B, where I worked.

In Aug 1996 I flew TW LAX-STL on an L-1011 and then STL-LGW on a 747

I remembered TWA flew lots of L1011 from STL to LAX, SFO, JFK, ORD, ABQ, SEA, PDX, MIA, MCO, MCI, LGA, EWR and other 747 was to HNL, LGW and JFK plus sometime ORD and 767 used to CDG, LGW and FRA. Now STL is no longer hub anymore.

[quote="PSU.DTW.SCE"]-Frankfurt: April 29, 1985, flown with 767-200ER until 1990.
-London (Gatwick): April 28, 1985 747. Shortly after it was downgraded to daily 767-200ER flights. From 1994 to 1996 it was flown with a 747 and in the summer of 1998 it was twice daily. By the end it was a daily 767-300ER flight.
-Paris: April 28, 1985 (became seasonal in the mid-90s) flown with 767-200ER.

Planned Routes:
-Frankfurt was to return May 1, 2001 with daily 767-300ER flights.
-Osaka and Tokyo were planned around 1999 with 767-200ER aircraft but never materialised.


Where were Tokyo and Osaka going to be flown from?

OzarkD9S wrote:

IIRC, STL-MAD was applied for, can't remember if it was approved or not. L1011 service to CDG via BOS was operated off and on, usually in the off-season when the STL-CDG route went on hiatus, at least for a couple of winters.

I remember they also applied for STL-NRT when the first openskies agreement between US and Japan was signed that opened more NRT slots to US airlines other than UA and NW. Obviously they did not get the slots and the slots went to Delta and American.

USAir was another one applying for the NRT slots, I think from PHL.

SeaDoo wrote:

Where were Tokyo and Osaka going to be flown from?

I was not aware of KIX. But they did applied for STL-NRT. They did not get the slots.

aircountry wrote:

I remembered TWA flew lots of L1011 from STL to LAX, SFO, JFK, ORD, ABQ, SEA, PDX, MIA, MCO, MCI, LGA, EWR and other 747 was to HNL, LGW and JFK plus sometime ORD and 767 used to CDG, LGW and FRA. Now STL is no longer hub anymore.

IIRC TW even offered a nonstop STL-OGG service on the 767 - which AA then quickly transferred up to ORD. I believe that may have been the first ever nonstop between Chicago and Maui; though even that AA ORD-OGG service ultimately proved to be short lived.

The longest haul TWA services at STL were cut *very* quickly once AA took over; I’m not sure AA ever even flew nonstop to Alaska, Europe or Hawaii under its own branding from the STL hub. I’m assuming those STL-Europe flights probably didn’t do very well based on how quickly AA ended them, though!

In fact, many AA mainline flights were gone from STL within a few years. The primarily regional AA hub operation that remained was then an early casualty of the Great Recession. WN did seem to backfill quite a bit of the capacity that AA cut, though.

In recent years, WN’s STL operation actually has started to look a lot more like the old TW hub - complete with regional feeder services to places like DSM, ICT, LIT and TUL; ever more nonstop service to the East Coast, West Coast and South; and even international flights to CUN as well as the Caribbean. Fares on WN today are probably much more friendly to STL O&D travelers than TW’s were, though... wasn’t there some massive scandal about TWA ripping off local St. Louis passengers to subsidize connecting passengers?

I flew a post-merger TWA 767-300ER still in TWA colors from STL to London-Gatwick in the summer of 2002.

CitizenJustin wrote:

What equipment did TWA use on flights to Europe from STL? At its peak, did STL serve more than just CDG and LGW and were the flights daily?

I can’t seem to find any information regarding TWA’s European ops from STL.

Thanks!

Hi there,

TWA only flew to LGW and Paris CDG from STL. The 747 was at the beginning to LGW but soon both flights were operated on a 763. One of the last 763 I saw in CDG.
In the latter years of TWA the 747s were only used for the STL-HNL-STL services (TW 1 + 2). Later the airline was takes over by AA and the STL - Europe flts were, unfortunately, canceled as AA had east coast hubs, at that time mainly JFK and ORD.

ZRHYYZ773ER wrote:

Hi there,

TWA only flew to LGW and Paris CDG from STL.

And FRA:

http://www.departedflights.com/TWSTLhub.html

Typically Gatwick was served by a 747-100 in the summer and a 767-200 in the winter. In the 1997 summer season a 2nd daily was launched from 15 May 1997 with both flights flown by a 767-200, this was the only time it was double daily. This meant an overall loss of seats as it went from 433 on the 747 to 384 on 2 767-200's but with more first seats. I have always suspected the the relative quick drawdown of the 747's after TW800 was why the 97 summer was double daily as Gatwick to St Louis carried a lot of connection passengers especially to Florida, these sort of holidays back then tended to booked at least a year in advance so I think a lot of seats had been sold already based on a 747 capacity, which needed to be replaced with the 747 retirement. The 98 season was back to daily until it ended after the American take over.

TWA at various points flew Gatwick to Baltimore, New York JFK, Philadelphia and St Louis along with Frankfurt.

On another point TWA did use L1011's from Heathrow to Chicago, in the last peak summer flown in 1990 Boston, Chicago, and the daylight JFK LHR were Tristars, 747's on 3 JFK's and Los Angeles. Philadelphia was a 767.

amc737

ZRHYYZ773ER wrote:

CitizenJustin wrote:

What equipment did TWA use on flights to Europe from STL? At its peak, did STL serve more than just CDG and LGW and were the flights daily?

I can’t seem to find any information regarding TWA’s European ops from STL.

Thanks!

Hi there,

TWA only flew to LGW and Paris CDG from STL. The 747 was at the beginning to LGW but soon both flights were operated on a 763. One of the last 763 I saw in CDG.
In the latter years of TWA the 747s were only used for the STL-HNL-STL services (TW 1 + 2). Later the airline was takes over by AA and the STL - Europe flts were, unfortunately, canceled as AA had east coast hubs, at that time mainly JFK and ORD.

TWA flew STL-FRA as well and it was planned to resume in 2001.

SurfandSnow wrote:

aircountry wrote:

I remembered TWA flew lots of L1011 from STL to LAX, SFO, JFK, ORD, ABQ, SEA, PDX, MIA, MCO, MCI, LGA, EWR and other 747 was to HNL, LGW and JFK plus sometime ORD and 767 used to CDG, LGW and FRA. Now STL is no longer hub anymore.

IIRC TW even offered a nonstop STL-OGG service on the 767 - which AA then quickly transferred up to ORD. I believe that may have been the first ever nonstop between Chicago and Maui; though even that AA ORD-OGG service ultimately proved to be short lived.

The longest haul TWA services at STL were cut *very* quickly once AA took over; I’m not sure AA ever even flew nonstop to Alaska, Europe or Hawaii under its own branding from the STL hub. I’m assuming those STL-Europe flights probably didn’t do very well based on how quickly AA ended them, though!

In fact, many AA mainline flights were gone from STL within a few years. The primarily regional AA hub operation that remained was then an early casualty of the Great Recession. WN did seem to backfill quite a bit of the capacity that AA cut, though.

In recent years, WN’s STL operation actually has started to look a lot more like the old TW hub - complete with regional feeder services to places like DSM, ICT, LIT and TUL; ever more nonstop service to the East Coast, West Coast and South; and even international flights to CUN as well as the Caribbean. Fares on WN today are probably much more friendly to STL O&D travelers than TW’s were, though... wasn’t there some massive scandal about TWA ripping off local St. Louis passengers to subsidize connecting passengers?

Post acquisition by AA and for a very short time, AA maintained STL-LGW did it not? It was withdrawn in the first wave of cuts AA applied at STL.

gte439u wrote:

dannynoble wrote:

i looked at departed flights, since i see lots of people recommend it, and to be honest departed flights is kind of worthless. they had a whopping 4 oag world wide flight schedules and none of them even had st louis as a destination.

Departed Flights is the project of one man who manually enteres OAG flight schedules and scans airline timetables and other ephemera. He does this in his leisure time and at his own expense. I think that it is a valuable tool, and ever second Friday there is new information on the site.

You can try Timetableimages for more resources, but those tend to be more thorough for the period prior to 1970.

I love departed flights and thank the person who keeps it for all of us. Having said that, I do agree with dannynoble that it is rather annoying when someone posts a reasonable schedule question on here, and someone else dismisses the question and refers to them to departed flights as if they shouldn’t have posted the question when often departed flights doesn’t have sufficient information to answer the question

TW never flew STL-FCO nonstop (expect for the time they carried the Pope). The schedule may have shown TW 842/843 as flying STL-FCO, but in reality 842/843 were "change of gauge" flights that were L1011s (and later 757s) from STL to JFK. Then, TW 840/841 operated JFK-FCO with the 747 (and later the 767-300).

The FRA resumption in 01 was always tentative.

They were closing down Kennedy and they had no options left for Europe.

As part of the announcements St. Louis was going to expand or renovate their international arrivals area.

It was very obvious it was never going to fly because the airline was never going to survive.

By 2001, Anyone that followed TWA knew the end was near. They shrunk too much and had too little money. They consolidated themselves in a midwest, low O and D hub, When it became painfully obvious by 2001 that the industry was moving away from that

EMB170 wrote:

TW never flew STL-FCO nonstop (expect for the time they carried the Pope). The schedule may have shown TW 842/843 as flying STL-FCO, but in reality 842/843 were "change of gauge" flights that were L1011s (and later 757s) from STL to JFK. Then, TW 840/841 operated JFK-FCO with the 747 (and later the 767-300).

TW 842/843 routing was SFO-JFK-MXP (842) JFK-MXP-SFO (843). The JFK-SFO-JFK sectors were usually flown on L1011s and the JFK-MXP sector was flown on 747s. TWA 840/841 routing was usually LAX-JFK-FCO (840) and FCO-JFK-LAX (841). For a time, there was also FCO-ATH-CAI extensions (and reverse) operating under 848/847 (not sure if the 847 flight number was retired after the June 1985 hijacking). There was also an on and off second flight between JFK and FCO at times, operating with 747 and 767 equipment departing JFK later in the evenings. Usually 9PM.

Cointrin330 wrote:

EMB170 wrote:

TW never flew STL-FCO nonstop (expect for the time they carried the Pope). The schedule may have shown TW 842/843 as flying STL-FCO, but in reality 842/843 were "change of gauge" flights that were L1011s (and later 757s) from STL to JFK. Then, TW 840/841 operated JFK-FCO with the 747 (and later the 767-300).

TW 842/843 routing was SFO-JFK-MXP (842) JFK-MXP-SFO (843). The JFK-SFO-JFK sectors were usually flown on L1011s and the JFK-MXP sector was flown on 747s. TWA 840/841 routing was usually LAX-JFK-FCO (840) and FCO-JFK-LAX (841). For a time, there was also FCO-ATH-CAI extensions (and reverse) operating under 848/847 (not sure if the 847 flight number was retired after the June 1985 hijacking). There was also an on and off second flight between JFK and FCO at times, operating with 747 and 767 equipment departing JFK later in the evenings. Usually 9PM.

I was in Rome in July 1999. The board still had FCO JFK LAX.

I think that thru flight lasted til FCO was closed

I flew a TWA 747 from STL - JFK in August of '94. Wondering if that was a sub or a one stop to Europe.

stl07 wrote:

And now we are celebrating AA launching STL-CUN

Oh how the times change haha

Wow, good point. When I was a kid, STL was the first large hub I visited. I was just an aviation loving boy from Wichita, so I was pretty impressed and loved seeing all the planes, especially the TWA 757’s. That was a big deal for a kid from Kansas lol. I also distinctly remember just how packed the terminal was. STL/TWA will always hold a special place in my heart.

raylee67 wrote:

SeaDoo wrote:

Where were Tokyo and Osaka going to be flown from?

I was not aware of KIX. But they did applied for STL-NRT. They did not get the slots.

This is an excerpt from a PDF article that I had. I recall they were awarded it and that the 762ER was to be used until the A330s showed up. We all know how that nightmare ended. The Japanese awarded route authority but didn't award any additional slots to AA. The negotiations to free up more slots took a few years and by then it was too late.

With the new bilateral memorandum of understanding between the US and Japan, STL was designated as a gateway city for Japan/US traffic and two new slots for US airlines to fly to Japan were opened. TWA promptly re-filed it's existing Japan route authority request, asking for daily frequencies for STL-AA), Japan">NRT, to be flown starting June 1, 1999, on 767-200ER aircraft. (NB: not the existing 767-200s in the TWA fleet) In addition, TWA requested code-share authority on four Delta routes (LAX-AA), Japan">NRT, Portland-Nagoya, Portland-Osaka and Portland-Fukuoka). The codeshare flights would originate out of STL, with codeshare, on-line connections to the Delta flights. This benefits both airlines. TWA gets earlier, and more complete visibility to Japan, Delta gets extra feed for it's flights.

STL-SJU also saw TWA 747s in the mid '90's.

PSU.DTW.SCE wrote:

-Frankfurt: April 29, 1985, flown with 767-200ER until 1990.
-London (Gatwick): April 28, 1985 747. Shortly after it was downgraded to daily 767-200ER flights. From 1994 to 1996 it was flown with a 747 and in the summer of 1998 it was twice daily. By the end it was a daily 767-300ER flight.
-Paris: April 28, 1985 (became seasonal in the mid-90s) flown with 767-200ER.

Planned Routes:
-Frankfurt was to return May 1, 2001 with daily 767-300ER flights.
-Osaka and Tokyo were planned around 1999 with 767-200ER aircraft but never materialised.

There were rumours of Madrid and Amsterdam being added, but these never came to anything.

Here's the TWA Skyliner article with the schedule (see page 3) https://digital.shsmo.org/digital/collection/twa/id/8192/rec/4

SurfandSnow wrote:

aircountry wrote:

The longest haul TWA services at STL were cut *very* quickly once AA took over; I’m not sure AA ever even flew nonstop to Alaska, Europe or Hawaii under its own branding from the STL hub. I’m assuming those STL-Europe flights probably didn’t do very well based on how quickly AA ended them, though!

I flew MSY-STL-HNL on American in July 2003. At the time, Lambert was still very much a hub for American with a busy domestic network out of Concourses C and D and a slew of ATRs and Trans States ERJs with American Connection titles and the full blue eagle on the tail. I flew out of the widebody gates at the end of C on a legacy-AA 767-300ER (N355AA) nonstop to Honolulu. Adjacent to us, another legacy-AA 757-200 was loading up for the flight to SJU. I can't speak for the CDG flight, but I do have memories of seeing AA's STL-LGW flight being on the monitors in the gate area as an afternoon/evening departures.

If I recall correctly, AA contracted quite a bit in either late 2003 or 2004 at STL necessitating the closure of Concourse D and a consolidation of ops in C. I believe the HNL and LGW flights were gone no later than 2005 when the hub was cut back to a glorified focus city.

EMB170 wrote:

TW never flew STL-FCO nonstop (expect for the time they carried the Pope). The schedule may have shown TW 842/843 as flying STL-FCO, but in reality 842/843 were "change of gauge" flights that were L1011s (and later 757s) from STL to JFK. Then, TW 840/841 operated JFK-FCO with the 747 (and later the 767-300).

Ah, that's what I was thinking! I remember there being a big spread in the Post-Dispatch about this one time FCO flight for the Pope.

Is there a running list of "former hubs that have lost the most transoceanic service"? I would imagine STL is near the top of that list. CVG, while still a focus city, also once had a lot more transoceanic than the one CDG flight they retain. MEM had AMS and CLE had LHR (or was it LGW?), and PIT had both London airports at one time or another (were there any other European destinations from PIT?). Any other airports I'm forgetting?

Stoneysp wrote:

I flew a TWA 747 from STL - JFK in August of '94. Wondering if that was a sub or a one stop to Europe.

Might have been a one stop to TLV. Because I believe that TWA used to have a nonstop JFK-TLV. It used to be a 747.