Tower Air Grounded
 

At least for passenger service.

Check the A-P wire, but story we're running this morning says Tower Air has suspended Passenger Service but will continue Military and charter service.

There was a group of travelers to Israel stranded at Kennedy AIrport Monday night.

Last flights due in Tuesday morning.

INteresting thing: the website www.towerair.com is still advertising for passenger service and offering specials.

Remember: Tower Air filed for Chapter 11 in February.

So it looks like another airline has gone to that great airport in the sky!

a few other items to note (at least according to the news last night) -- no other airlines are honoring their tickets, refunds will need to be processed though bankruptcy court, and the TowerAir name was being removed from the planes as of 11:00pm last night.

--Jim

Here's a link to the story:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/f/AP-Tower-Air.html

El Al will fly folks with Tower tickets home from JFK for $400, while TWA was simply not honoring Tower tickets http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

JetBlue Airways, NY's newest(?) low-fare carrier based at JFK, waived its advance purchase restrictions for the next 2 weeks to help stranded Tower Air pax travel between NY and Florida for USD$79 each way.
Travel is available on selected flights between NY/JFK and Ft. Lauderdale and between JFK and Tampa until May 18.

Pax must book travel by calling the JetBlue reservations center, at 1-800 JetBlue. Stand-by requests will not be considered and this offer cannot be booked on the JetBlue website. Pax must also show their Tower ticket at the airport to prove eligibility.

And BTW, another lost opportunity for some good press for TWA!!! A mistake in my view for the limited liability here. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

[This message has been edited by doc (edited 05-02-2000).]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I flew Tower a few times. I was able to sit in business class at a time when I would never have been able to otherwise. Old, clunky 747s, very old.

It wasn't the worst airline but it was pretty bad cattle car. You had to line up early in their JFK terminal. They treated you on the ground somewhat like a second class crowd. OTOH they did have that low, low fare with no advance purchase.

On the whole, I'm sorry they never presented a credible threat to the majors, but they never did. They had a long and thin route structure that could never make any money, IMHO. I heard they did most of their business on days that El Al wouldn't fly for religious reasons, don't know if that is true or not.

I'd bet TWA had no seats available for days--remember they only are flying 767-300s nowadays. No sense getting people's hopes up standing by when there truly aren't any seats available.

I flew them twice, RT, from LA to JFK. Always business class ($400 one-way, no restriction, compared to about $950 one-way coach on other airlines). I liked the upstairs business class on the 747. They had a lounge for business class so you got reasonable treatment.

It looks as though Continental Airlines has some plans to help Tower Air (They are offering to waive advance purchase requirements, but they are not honoring their tickets for transport).

see: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000503/tx_contine_1.html

doc,

I disagree completely. There is no reason for TWA to honor Tower Air tickets. TWA can't afford to give away seats on one of its last remaining profitable overwater routes.

No airline has any reason to honor tickets for which they will never receive payment, and every reason to "waive advance purchase" restrictions to people who have Tower Air tix, because these seats would have been potentially unsold, and the goodwill earned is substantial, as these people will now need to find a new carrier to TLV. Although there are only a few US carriers flying there, for those living anywhere west (and generally having to change planes, etc) we could fly any of a number of european carriers with 1 change of planes in europe. And we could receive our choice of whatever alliance miles. So I think CO is playing it smart, and other carriers may (silently) be doing the same.