What city is most likely to gain/regain "hub" airport status? (jet, commercial)
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Also TWA for PIttsburgh and KC, and it appears KC might have been their primary hub. They probably didn't call it that back then.
MCI (Kansas City) was TWA's maintenance headquarters, at least in the 70s. My first time flying from NYC to LA (also my first flight on TWA) in March 1975, we landed at MCI due to an engine problem (plane was a 747-131) (It's never a good sign when a flight attendant comes over and asks if you see smoke coming out of the engine (it was the #3 engine, inner engine on the right side). 7 hours later, we were back in the air headed to LAX. Flight left JFK at Noon EST, was due in LAX around 2:30 PST, we got there at 9:00 PST. 12 hours in a plane is a bit much, even in the Queen of the skies
MCI (Kansas City) was TWA's maintenance headquarters, at least in the 70s. My first time flying from NYC to LA (also my first flight on TWA) in March 1975, we landed at MCI due to an engine problem (plane was a 747-131) (It's never a good sign when a flight attendant comes over and asks if you see smoke coming out of the engine (it was the #3 engine, inner engine on the right side). 7 hours later, we were back in the air headed to LAX. Flight left JFK at Noon EST, was due in LAX around 2:30 PST, we got there at 9:00 PST. 12 hours in a plane is a bit much, even in the Queen of the skies
Kansas City was an important point on the TWA system, going back to the carrier's origins in the 1930's, when it was still known as Trans Western. The maintenance base was established at that time, and remained there until the company went out of business in 2000. At the beginning of the jet age, other than the maintenance base, Kansas City had become nothing more than another TWA destination. If one looks at old timetables from the 1960's, they will see a reasonable distribution of flights at KC, between TWA, Braniff, Continental, and United. The hub concept hadn't been conceived yet.
MCI (Kansas City) was TWA's maintenance headquarters, at least in the 70s. My first time flying from NYC to LA (also my first flight on TWA) in March 1975, we landed at MCI due to an engine problem (plane was a 747-131) (It's never a good sign when a flight attendant comes over and asks if you see smoke coming out of the engine (it was the #3 engine, inner engine on the right side). 7 hours later, we were back in the air headed to LAX. Flight left JFK at Noon EST, was due in LAX around 2:30 PST, we got there at 9:00 PST. 12 hours in a plane is a bit much, even in the Queen of the skies
Quote:
Originally Posted by BLS2753
Kansas City was an important point on the TWA system, going back to the carrier's origins in the 1930's, when it was still known as Trans Western. The maintenance base was established at that time, and remained there until the company went out of business in 2000. At the beginning of the jet age, other than the maintenance base, Kansas City had become nothing more than another TWA destination. If one looks at old timetables from the 1960's, they will see a reasonable distribution of flights at KC, between TWA, Braniff, Continental, and United. The hub concept hadn't been conceived yet.
As I think I mentioned upthread, even after Howard Hughes moved the executive suite to New York, Kansas City remained the airline's home, just as Omaha was the home of the Union Pacific Railroad even after its headquarters got moved to Bethlehem, Pa.
"The Lindbergh Line" (as it called itself in the 1930s) was created in the 1920s through the merger of Transcontinental Air Transport and Western Air Express; TWA stood for Transcontinental & Western Air originally. BTW. I think there's still a plaque near the 7th Avenue and 32d Street entrance to Penn Station in New York that commemorates an early "fast transit" service that took you from New York to San Francisco in just two days using a combination of PRR and UP trains and TWA airplanes.
And again, as mentioned upthread, MCI was built in 1952 for the express purpose of providing TWA with a maintenance base that was not subject to flooding as Kansas City Municipal Airport was.
As I think I mentioned upthread, even after Howard Hughes moved the executive suite to New York, Kansas City remained the airline's home, just as Omaha was the home of the Union Pacific Railroad even after its headquarters got moved to Bethlehem, Pa.
"The Lindbergh Line" (as it called itself in the 1930s) was created in the 1920s through the merger of Transcontinental Air Transport and Western Air Express; TWA stood for Transcontinental & Western Air originally. BTW. I think there's still a plaque near the 7th Avenue and 32d Street entrance to Penn Station in New York that commemorates an early "fast transit" service that took you from New York to San Francisco in just two days using a combination of PRR and UP trains and TWA airplanes.
And again, as mentioned upthread, MCI was built in 1952 for the express purpose of providing TWA with a maintenance base that was not subject to flooding as Kansas City Municipal Airport was.
MCI didn't open until 1972. Headquarters and hub aren't synonymous. Hubs are a post-1978 Deregulation Act creation. This thread is about potential hubs, therefore a recitation on the history of Kansas City aviation prior to 1978 is irrelevant.
San Diego is in a corner of the country. That's NOT where you have a "hub."
Somewhere, geographically, in the center would be a strategic hub.
Kansas City and Oklahoma City are both pretty close to the geographic center of the continental U.S. For that reason alone, I could see either of them becoming a hub. Salina, KS is even closer, but I'm not quite seeing hub status for that airport anytime soon.
MCI didn't open until 1972. Headquarters and hub aren't synonymous. Hubs are a post-1978 Deregulation Act creation. This thread is about potential hubs, therefore a recitation on the history of Kansas City aviation prior to 1978 is irrelevant.
KCI opened in 1972. It retained the airport code of the facility it expanded. Yes, we're talking about the future rather than the past. But since someone else brought up history (I quoted their posts in mine), I thought I'd clarify the history a bit.
KCI opened in 1972. It retained the airport code of the facility it expanded. Yes, we're talking about the future rather than the past. But since someone else brought up history (I quoted their posts in mine), I thought I'd clarify the history a bit.
The airport code for Kansas City International Airport is MCI. Are you referring to a different "KCI" airport? I looked but couldn't find that code in use.
The airport code for Kansas City International Airport is MCI. Are you referring to a different "KCI" airport? I looked but couldn't find that code in use.
I was trying to distinguish between Mid-Continent International Airport, which is the maintenance base that opened in 1952, and Kansas City International Airport (KCI), the passenger air terminal that opened at MCI 20 years later. KCI uses the airport code of the field it sits on, similar to Chicago's O'Hare Airport, which opened in the 1940s as Orchard Field and still uses its airport code (ORD).
No one in Kansas City calls the passenger air terminal by its airport code; it's known as KCI. MCI did open in 1952.
Edited to add: Generally speaking, new, expanded or renamed airports that occupy already existing airfields continue to use the airport codes of the original airfield. New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport, for instance, still uses MSY (Moisant Stock Yards, the original airport code given to what opened as Moisant Field; daredevil aviator John Moisant died when his plane crashed in 1910 on the farmland on which the airport now sits [source]). The one exception I know of to this rule is New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), which was known as Idlewild Airport (IDL) prior to Kennedy's death and its renaming.
Last edited by MarketStEl; 11-18-2022 at 07:52 PM..
The one exception I know of to this rule is New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), which was known as Idlewild Airport (IDL) prior to Kennedy's death and its renaming.
Baltimore's Friendship International Airport had the code BAL. When the airport was later renamed as Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the code was changed to BWI.
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(it was the #3 engine, inner engine on the right side). 7 hours later, we were back in the air headed to LAX. Flight left JFK at Noon EST, was due in LAX around 2:30 PST, we got there at 9:00 PST. 12 hours in a plane is a bit much, even in the Queen of the skies 
