Tower Air

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Tower Air
IATA FF	ICAO TOW	Callsign TowerAir
Founded		1983
Ceased operations		2000
Hubs		John F. Kennedy International Airport
Focus cities		Ben Gurion International Airport
Fleet size		17
Destinations		9
Company slogan		"Going Places"
Headquarters		Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York
Key people		Morris K. Nachtomi (co-founder, owner, manager)
Website: www.towerair.com (defunct)

Tower Air was a low-fare and charter U.S. airline that operated from 1983 until 2000, when it declared bankruptcy and was liquidated. During the mid-1980s until People Express ceased operations in 1987, the airline was a main competitor of People Express, in the high-density U.S. domestic market, but it had initially begun service as an international-only airline.

Contents 1 History 2 Destinations 2.1 Destinations at time of closure 2.1.1 Middle East 2.1.2 North America 2.2 Destinations before closure 2.2.1 Europe before closure 2.2.2 North America before closure 3 Other facts of interest 4 Aircraft 5 Incidents and accidents 6 References 7 External links

[edit] History

Tower Air was co-founded, majority owned, and managed by Morris K. Nachtomi, an Israeli citizen who had immigrated to the United States. After a 30-year career with El Al, Nachtomi joined a wholesaler and tour package operator called Tower Travel Corporation in 1981 and co-founded Tower Air one year later with Zev Melamid, Mordechi Gill, and Sam Fondlier. Arthur Fondlier, son of Sam Fondlier and the Chief Financial Officer of Tower, was a passenger in first class on Pan Am flight 103. His untimely death gave Mr. Nachtomi much more freedom in management and cost-cutting.

The company won many contracts from the United States Department of Defense to transport U.S. armed forces personnel to overseas locations, and from the U.N. to transport troops to its peacekeeping missions all over the world. It was often chartered to fly groups of Muslim pilgrims to Mecca.

Tower Air's main base of scheduled operations was John F. Kennedy International Airport in Jamaica, New York and during its peak had its own terminal (the former Eastern Airlines Terminal). It had a large focus on flights to Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, becoming a major competitor of El Al and British Airways in the US-Israel market. The airline also had several flights into France, Greece, and Brazil as well as high density domestic destinations in the New York market, including San Juan, Miami, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, Nevada. The airline was unique as being exclusively composed of Boeing 747-100 and -200 series aircraft.

The 1997 Zagat Survey placed Tower Air 59th out of 61 ranked carriers, edging ahead of Valujet and Aeroflot.^[1] In February 1998, the Federal Aviation Administration proposed two civil penalties totaling $276,000 for continuing to fly aircraft that required maintenance action ^[2]. The FAA successfully sought in January, 1998 to have the airline remove then-29 year old Mr. Guy Nachtomi, son of the Chairman and CEO, from the position as Vice President-Operations, in part because of the airline's maintenance, as well the junior Mr. Nachtomi's little airline experience, having worked at Twentieth Century Fox until 1994. ^[3] The junior Mr. Nachtomi continued service with the company in a capacity unrelated to maintenance as Vice President-Office of the Chairman. ^[4] The Department of Defense Commercial Airlift Review Board suspended Tower Air military charters from January 27 to February 12, 1999, pending an on-site review of their operations. At the same time the airline lost an arbitration brought by the Association of Flight Attendants, claiming that Tower Air had begun lodging its flight attendants in dirty Tel Aviv hotels with poor security and bed bugs.^{[citation needed]}

Tower Air filed for protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy on February 29, 2000, ceased all scheduled service on May 1, 2000^[5], and surrendered its FAA air carrier operating certificate on November 28, 2000 ^[6].

[edit] Destinations

[edit] Destinations at time of closure

[edit] Middle East

• Israel
  • Tel Aviv^{[7][7] [8]}

[edit] North America

• United States
  • Miami, Florida^{[7][7] [8]}
  • New York City, New York (JFK – airline hub)^{[7] [8]}
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico^[7][8]

[edit] Destinations before closure

[edit] Europe before closure

• France
  • Paris^[7][9][10]
• Greece
  • Athens^[9][10]

[edit] North America before closure

• Dominican Republic
  • Santo Domingo^[10]
• United States
  • Fort Lauderdale, Florida^[10]
  • Las Vegas, Nevada^[9][10]
  • Los Angeles, California^[7][9][10]
  • San Francisco, California^[7][9][10]

[edit] Other facts of interest

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Tower Air was prominently featured in such movies as Liar Liar and Turbulence. The latter featured one of its 747 aircraft in the full colors of fictional TransCon Airlines. The aircraft was flown by Tower Air pilots and filming conducted by Aviation Photographer Clay Lacy.
• Many former Tower Air airplanes have been stored in Marana, Arizona.
• Major artifacts from the World Trade Center are housed for safekeeping in the former Tower Air Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

[edit] Aircraft

Tower Air's fleet consisted of 17 Boeing 747 planes in both the 747-100 and 747-200 series, with 14 passenger aircraft and three cargo aircraft.

[edit] Incidents and accidents

On December 20, 1995, Tower Air flight 41 from New York Kennedy to Miami veered off the runway during takeoff resulting in 1 flight attendant receiving serious injuries and 24 passengers receiving minor injuries. The aircraft sustained heavy damage and had to be written off.^[11] The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the probable cause of this accident was the captain's failure to reject the takeoff in a timely manner when excessive nosewheel steering tiller inputs resulted in a loss of directional control on a slippery runway. ^{[12] [13] [14] [15]}

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Tower Air website (defunct)
• 1997 interview with co-founder
• Tower Air Collapse Will Bring Higher N.Y. Air Fares.
• Travel agency advertising Tower Air service to Athens
• Tower Air Debrief

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