Twa

NEW YORK (AP) -- A group of creditors owed $240 million by TWA went to court today to try to call in their collateral, a request that could possibly force the debt-plagued airline to seek bankruptcy protection or halt much of it operations.A court hearing was scheduled in federal court in White Plains, N.Y. to decide whether to grant the preliminary injunction requested by holders of TWA's 15 percent senior secured notes, a court clerk said.The hearing raised the possibility that TWA may seek bankruptcy court protection from creditors to avoid the injunction, said Barry Ridings of Alex.

When is the best time of year to hike to the top of Half Dome? Any tips for an enjoyable experience? The best time? Not now, that's for sure. The good news is: You have months to prepare for reaching the summit of Half Dome at Yosemite National Park. For starters, get in shape. Reaching the summit requires a certain level of fitness - it's about a 15-mile round trip over 10 to 12 hours, and most people choose to do it in a day. Steel cables that cover the last 400 feet and allow hikers to reach the summit are installed in the spring (usually in May)

If you're going to Lisbon, Portugal, this winter or spring, you may be in luck.Trans World Airlines announced yesterday that it was cutting its fares to 17 European destinations. The savings on round-trip tickets from Baltimore-Washington International Airport range from a modest $20 on flights to London to $286 on the Lisbon route.The lower fares, adopted in response to earlier cuts by American Airlines, are valid for travel beginning between Jan. 12 and March 31, with travel completed by April 7. Tickets must be bought in advance, no later than Jan. 15th.

BERLIN -- Germany has freed from prison a Lebanese member of Hezbollah who was serving a life sentence for killing a U.S. Navy diver from Maryland during the hijacking of a TWA jet in 1985. The release of Mohammed Ali Hamadi infuriated the family of Robert Dean Stethem, who was beaten, shot in the head and dumped on the tarmac of Beirut's airport after he refused the hijackers' demands to denounce his country. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Baltimore Democrat, sent a letter yesterday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, asking her to express her objections about Hamadi's release.

NEW YORK -- USAir Group Inc., which has struggled with two major acquisitions in the past six years, has been discussing buying the assets of Trans World Airlines in a deal that might involve British Airways.Arlington, Va.-based USAir is the largest carrier at Baltimore-Washington International Airport with 56 percent of the traffic. New York-based TWA has a 3.4 percent share.Whether a USAir-TWA combination would further depress traffic at BWI -- as occurred after USAir bought Piedmont Aviation in 1987 -- is unclear, although several observers suggested it would not."

Trans World Airlines Inc. is about to land in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the second time in four years -- but this time it expects the visit to be brief.TWA, a once-proud trans-Atlantic carrier that has been hammered in recent years by a takeover fight, fare wars, an aging fleet and suffocating debt, is trying to take the first step toward sustained profits by slashing its $1.7 billion of long-term debt.Its proposal: TWA's creditors and public noteholders would forgive $500 million of the debt in exchange for more common stock in the nation's seventh-largest airline.

Trans World Airlines is expected to name a chairman as early as today: William R. Howard, the former chairman of Piedmont Airlines, who was widely credited with turning that carrier into one of the more successful airlines of the 1980s.TWA, which has been operating under bankruptcy protection since January 1992, decided on Mr. Howard because he is highly regarded on Wall Street, as well as within the airline industry, people familiar with the expected appointment said. In recent years, the airline has had leaders with plenty of one or the otherquality, but not both.

Trans World Airlines announced cutbacks in service yesterday as part of an effort to return to profitability by shrinking and reducing costs.The reductions in flights are part of TWA's plan, to be presented to a federal bankruptcy court this month, for emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which it entered in January.The plan calls for the retirement of about 20 wide-body Boeing 747s and Lockheed L-1011s, shrinking the airline's fleet from 187 airplanes to 167.The plan includes a 15 percent cut in labor costs through wage, benefit and work-rule concessions from all of TWA's unions, whose leaders agreed to the terms last month.

The sale of the only direct air service to London from Baltimore-Washington International Airport will depend upon the outcome of delicate negotiations between the U.S. and British governments concerning landing rights in England.The route is among the assets Trans World Airlines has agreed to sell to American Airlines in a multimillion-dollar deal to raise cash for TWA.If the U.S. and British governments approve, it will be the second time in three years the service from to BWI to London's Gatwick has changed hands.

Trans World Airlines Inc. and American Airlines teamed up yesterday to threaten Delta Air Lines Inc.'s bid for many of bankrupt Pan Am Corp.'s key assets, offering to buy the whole airline for $450 million.The offer represented the start of a bidding war for the remaining jewels of Pan Am, said industry analysts, who gave Delta the winning edge."It certainly created a maelstrom," said Leon Marcus, the representative for Pan Am's unsecured creditors, who are looking to get as much cash as possible for the carrier's assets.

Denise Mary Svatos, a former vice president with Trans World Airlines and champion swimmer, died of Alzheimer's disease Aug. 7 at Sunrise Assisted Living in Severna Park. She was 55. Born in New York City and raised in Birmingham, Ala., Ms. Svatos won Alabama swimming titles in backstroke and sprint events, and competed at the U.S. Nationals as a teen-ager, said her brother, Joseph Svatos of Washington. She won a scholarship to St. Mary's Dominican College in New Orleans, later transferring to the University of Georgia and earning a bachelor's degree in 1969.

ST. LOUIS - Business travel within the United States has dropped nearly 9 percent over the past two years. Trips to this country by overseas visitors have plunged 26 percent. Major airlines have laid off thousands of employees, canceled hundreds of daily flights - and warned of more fundamental restructuring ahead. Yet bulldozers continue to carve out a new runway here at Lambert Field, as the airport presses ahead with a $1.1-billion initiative to boost capacity. Major expansions are also under way at airports in Atlanta, Oakland, Calif.

FORT WORTH, Texas - American Airlines will lay off more than 3,000 flight attendants effective July 1, the result of labor concessions, recent cuts in flights and employees returning from voluntary leaves, union leaders said yesterday. A total of 3,123 flight attendants will be furloughed, said George Price, spokesman for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. In addition, 1,502 attendants have agreed to take voluntary leaves of absence, and 43 signed up for job-sharing partnerships, he said.

NEW YORK - Global Airlines Corp. had "no assets" when the company offered to buy US Airways Group Inc. for $10 billion and Trans World Airlines Inc. for $298 million, the Securities and Exchange Authority claims. The SEC filed a civil suit against closely held Global and its chairman, Emil Bernard, seeking to block them from making similar offers in the future. "Global did not have the means to purchase either airline by tender offer or otherwise, as it had no assets or resources," the SEC said in a fraud complaint filed yesterday in federal court in New York.

WASHINGTON - AMR Corp., owner of American Airlines, will take a $990 million charge to write down the value of acquisitions such as Trans World Airlines Inc. and Reno Air Inc., widening losses at the largest airline company. The write-down, effective as of Jan. 1 this year, resulted from an accounting rule change, AMR said yesterday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The expenses are in line with what the company forecast in July. AMR will include the costs in year-to-date figures in its third-quarter results, without restating first- or second-quarter losses, spokesman Al Becker said.

In the Region Ciena Corp. fills 2 new jobs, revamps development arm Ciena Corp. promoted Jesus Leon yesterday to the new job of chief development officer, in which he will oversee the company's revamped product-development unit. The third-biggest U.S. maker of fiber-optic equipment also named Arthur Smith, 36, to the new position of senior vice president of worldwide customer services and support. He had run one of the company's long-distance network development teams. Leon, 57, had overseen Ciena's Metro Transport and Metro Switching divisions, spokesman Glenn Jasper said.

The digital clock on the edge of the screen marches past 8: 31, and the tiny animated jet keeps streaking across the sky. No one in the big, drafty convention hall needs to ask who is on board, nor what happens next.A flame spurts from the mid-section. The plane breaks apart, with the nose cone falling away. The rest -- tail, wings, engines, and all those people inside -- swerves into a long, agonizing spiral to the ocean, and everybody dies.Then the screen shuts off, the ceiling lights come up, and on goes the hearing, presided over by a semicircle of men in suits.

NEW YORK -- Trans World Airlines Inc. has offered to buy Pan Am Corp. for as much as $450 million in cash and securities, Pan Am said yesterday.A Pan Am spokeswoman, Pamela Hanlon, said TWA's proposal was contingent upon the cancellation of an agreement Pan Am had made to sell its important United States-to-London routes to the parent company of United Airlines.TWA also stipulated that Pan Am and TWA would have to sell overlapping international routes when the Pan Am buyout was ** completed, she said.

In the Region 2 utilities seeking to merge reach accords in Md., Del. Two mid-Atlantic energy suppliers who are planning a merger said yesterday that they reached settlement agreements regarding the plan with regulators, energy suppliers, industrial customers, and consumer advocates in Delaware and Maryland. Potomac Electric Power Co. of Washington and Conectiv Inc. of Wilmington, Del., have submitted the agreements to the public service commissions in Maryland and Delaware, which have the authority to accept or reject the merger.

A former TWA cargo worker who loaded planes carrying mail from Baltimore to Hawaii received a six-month sentence yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore for possessing stolen mail. Peter Bamidele Adeyemi, 46, of Hyattsville, a former baggage handler at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Frederic N. Smalkin, who recommended that the term be served in a halfway house, prosecutors said. Adeyemi, also known as Peter James, pleaded guilty in May to possession of stolen mail.