TWA Cancels Routes
 

TWA, as of November 30, 2000 has cancelled all its flights into and out of West Palm Beach Florida.

According to their spokespersone, Chris Kelly, other routes that are not profitable will also be cancelled in the near future.

Regarding Aviator members saving mileage for those destinations on the cancelled list, Ms Kelly said there is nothing TWA will do for these flyers.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum49/HTML/000204.html

Wouldn't TWA fliers be able to get there via America West?


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Jon Toner writes:

In theory, maybe.

Maybe in theory, In practice America west
doesn't fly to West palm beach.

TWA is also sending travel agents debit memos (ie, for a refund of paid commission) on routes that TW has cancelled. Further TW is not accomodating these pax on any other airline. Sorry, flight cancelled. Here's your $ back. Bye.

The "teeny weenie airline" is getting smaller as we speak.

I thought CO has routes to west palm, I was there couple of years ago. CO and TW are not partners i guess? I was in STL in July and those locals are very proud of their hometown airlines. I have never seen so many TW aircrafts in my life!

As far as I know, for the New York Area, the only established carriers that fly to WPB are Delta, USAIR and North West. None have affordable flights during the holidays at this late date.

CO and American West do not fly to WPB from either Laguardia or Kennedy.

Co had routes from iah,cle,ewr to pbi.

And I think with TWA dropping out, no major airline will be flying jfk-pbi nonstop.

as for afforable flight, it depends on your definition. CO has plenty of seats available at $699 rt http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

United flies non-stop to PBL direct .. from Chicago at least. I found out in a humorous way for a FF'er.

For International fares UA groups West Palm Beach,(PBL) Miami (MIA) and Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood (FLL) as simply "MIAMI. All are like DCA/IAD/BWI or SFO/OAK/SJC or LAX/ONT/BUR/SNA all "one" city according to UA.

You can fly into one and out of the others if required and UA still call them "Miami".

I am flying to Chile at Xmas.

UA has direct flights "Miami" MIA-SCL.

If I fly into PBL and then want to fly on to Miami, what do you think UA does?

Put me on a shuttle bus or taxi to MIA airport?? Heck no. That is far too simple.

They fly me back 3 hours to ORD and THEN 3 hours back ORD-MIA after goodness knows what layover time at ORD, back to MIA. Total 2300 extra miles for a bus transfer that might cost them .. what 30 bucks?

So If I start a MIA-SCL flight from PBL I am 2,300 miles (and with UA I get TRIPLE points until December 31 = 6900 points) in front if I commence it at PBL.

Weird but true. And if I ticket PBL-SCL-PBL, they gotta do another 6900 miles(13,800) to get me back to PBL! And this on top of the long 8½ hour flight MIA-SCL-MIA. 8234 miles for that = 24,702 extra UA points = 31,671 UA points in total.

All for a pretty cheap MIA-SCL r/t fare.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif


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~ Glen ~

Now, now, Boomer, I just booked 2 RTs EWR-PBI for $180 each in January. Not cheap, but not too bad. I don't think I'd care to try my luck mid-November to New Years, though.

And Glen, I think you'd be a bit startled to find yourself in PBL (Puerto Cabello, Venezuela) rather than PBI (West Palm Beach, Florida). Bit of an overshoot or a bit short, depending on which direction you're coming from. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Kitty Hawk ... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Either the writing on the UA paper timetable is getting even smaller (is that POSSIBLE!) or my eyes are getting worse. Or both! Thanks. The deal is still bizarre.

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~ Glen ~

Oh Boy! Less competition = higher prices!

As I posted in the TW thread, JetBlue will be starting service from JFK-PBI(I think its Oct or Nov) at $79 each way,so although they serve only a few cities they will probably conect there via JFK,so the fares should remain pretty much as is.

I hesitate to book tickets for my family on a start-up airline. Given the busy skys during the holiday season and memories of the Valuejet horror, I would not feel confident on Jetblue or any other startup.

Plus, at under $79 per ticket, they must be cutting costs somewhere.

Although anyting is possible I would feel pretty comfortable booking on JetBlue.

It has solid backing IMHO

TW

Yes, George Soros DOES have a few "bucks"! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

What happens to the Ambassador's Club?

It amazes me they could get away without providing transportation on other carriers. In all the discussion about back-to-back ticketing the airlines repeat endlessly that the ticket is a CONTRACT. Guess they've worded this contract such that only the customer is bound by it. And asking travel agents to refund commisions after they've already done all the work involved in ticketing in good faith is beyond the pale.

I'm skeptical about the statement that they won't protect customers on other airlines.

Granted, a Karabu/Lowestfare.com or Priceline ticket is valid only on TW (hence I think they have every right to refund your $$ and send you on your way.

I doubt that if you booked directly with TW a normal/published price tkt that they'd just say "you're on your own"

Apparently, according to planebusiness, PBI-JFK was largely a Karabu market (i.e. TW only getting 60% of the ticket price).

jl

jamiel, they absolutely could just refund your money if you had purchased a published fare. They are under no obligation to do anything else when the route is cancelled.

On what do you base that lack of liability?

In fact, it was just published in a local NY paper that TWA was selling tickets for the cancelled flights AFTER they decided to cancel them.

Do you still think there is no liability beyond a refund. My legal contacts disagree.

Hey Cyber,

Greetings from 10605.

I read the article in the paper too. I feel sorry for all the folks going to Florida who are now up the creek.
The folks at TWA are, well, we can't talk like that.

Dan

If I flew TWA and they cancelled my tix to my destination and simply gave me a refund without trying to accomodate me on another carrier, I would never, ever fly them again. It may be "legal" for them to do this, but it's extremely poor customer relationship. Unless one is based in STL and is either hopelessly addicted to their non-stops or their Aviators FF program, one should consider other carriers, as what's to stop them from dropping other routes and leaving fliers high and dry in the future. This is simply inexcusable behavior for an airline.

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Time..... is on my side.

My beef with TW occured in the mid 90's. I was a student rabbi, and I flew TW twice a month to get to my small congregation. Unfortunately during my time there, a young man of 21 years was killed in a car crash. I had to get there to do the funeral. TW would not offer me any discounted fare. "Only family get berevement fares." I was an elite flyer at the time (mid level). When I finally asked for my student disount (I was 24 at the time), the airline personel looked me up and down and said, "I thought you said you served as their rabbi?" I had to explain again that I was a student rabbi who served this small community. I couldn't believe the insensitivity.

[This message has been edited by zrs70 (edited 09-14-2000).]