Trans World Airlines  bond certificate 1961

Nice $1000 bond with an allegorical female seated with a globe in the clouds. Issued and cancelled. Dated 1961.

Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline from 1925 until 2001. It was originally formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a transcontinental route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis and Kansas City. Along with American, United, and Eastern, it was one of the "Big Four" domestic airlines in the United States formed by the Spoils Conference of 1930.

Howard Hughes acquired control of TWA in 1939, and after World War II led the expansion of the airline to serve Europe, the Middle East and Asia, making TWA a second unofficial flag carrier of the United States after Pan Am. Hughes gave up control in the 1960s, and the new management of TWA acquired Hilton International and Century 21 in an attempt to diversify the company's business. As the Airline

TWA's corporate history dates from the July 16, 1930, forced merger of Transcontinental Air Transport (T-A-T) and Western Air Express to form Transcontinental & Western Air (T&WA). The companies merged at the urging of Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown, who was looking for bigger airlines to give airmail contracts. Both airlines brought high-profile aviation pioneers who would give the airline the panache of being called "The Airline Run by Flyers." The airlines would be known for several years as being on the cutting edge of aviation. Transcontinental, the bigger of the two, had the marquee expertise of Charles Lindbergh and was already offering a 48-hour combination of plane and train trip across the United States. Western, which was slightly older, having been founded in 1925, had the expertise of Jack Frye.

On October 25, 1930, the airline offered one of the first all-plane scheduled service from coast to coast: the Lindbergh Route. The route took 36 hours and initially called for overnights in Kansas City. In 1931, the airline nearly went out of business after TWA Flight 599, a Fokker F.10, shed a wing and crashed on March 31 near Bazaar, Kansas, killing all eight on board the plane, including University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne.

In 1934, following charges of favoritism in the contracts, the Air Mail scandal erupted, leading to the Air Mail Act of 1934, which dissolved the forced Transcontinental and Western merger and ordered the United States Army Air Service to deliver the mail. The T&WA name, however, would stick with Transcontinental as TWA. With the company facing financial hardship, Lehman Brothers and John D. Hertz took over ownership of the company.

In 1938, Lehman and Hertz began selling their interest and General Motors began buying stock. Frye then approached another flying enthusiast, Howard Hughes, to buy stock. According to a biography of Hughes, he grumbled, "$15 million! That's a small fortune!" before he agreed and initially bought 25 percent of the airline.

Hughes gained a controlling interest in 1941 and eventually controlled 78 percent of TWA. The airline prospered during World War II, racking up 40 million miles in flights for the Army. After breaking Pan American World Airways' legal designation as the United States' sole international carrier, TWA began trans-Atlantic service in 1946 using DC-4s and the elegant new Lockheed Constellation ("Connie"); soon its name was changed to The Trans World Airline.

Hughes relinquished power in 1961 in the battle over the purchase of the Convair 880 jetliners. In the deal, Charles C. Tillinghast Jr. became chairman and oversaw the airline until 1976.  Under new management, the Trans World Corporation expanded to purchase the overseas operations of Hilton Hotels.

Airline deregulation hit TWA hard in the 1980s. TWA had badly neglected domestic U.S. expansion at a time when the newly deregulated domestic market was growing quickly. The airline briefly considered selling itself to renowned corporate raider Frank Lorenzo in the 1980s, but ended up selling to yet another corporate raider, Carl Icahn, in 1985. Under Icahn's direction, many of its most profitable assets were sold to competitors, much to the detriment of TWA. Icahn was eventually ousted in 1993, though not before the airline was forced to file for bankruptcy on January 31, 1992.

By 1998, TWA had reorganized as a primarily domestic carrier, with routes centered on hubs at St. Louis and New York. Financial problems soon resurfaced and Trans World Airlines Inc. assets were acquired in April 2001 by AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines, who quickly formed a new company called TWA Airlines LLC. As part of the deal, TWA declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy (for the third time) the day after it agreed to the purchase.