Icahn Plans to Slash Number of Planes and Flights at TWA

Trans World Airlines Chairman Carl C. Icahn said he plans to eliminate service to seven cities and sell or mothball 15 aircraft by October under an aggressive downsizing plan aimed at returning the carrier to profitability.

Icahn said a 7% reduction in TWA’s flight hours would be implemented because he has been unsuccessful in obtaining pay and benefit concessions from the airline’s 3,500 pilots.

He has said since January that he might shrink the troubled airline unless pilots agree to $80 million a year in wage and benefit cuts.

“You can’t keep losing $250 million a year,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’m not going to let TWA bleed to death and end up like Pan Am or Eastern.”

A TWA spokesman identified Madison, Wis., and Nassau and Freeport in the Bahamas, which are considered domestic flights, as three of the cities to be cut. Icahn declined to identify the rest.

TWA reported a first-quarter net loss of $143 million, compared to a net loss of $83.1 million a year earlier.