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View Full Version : JFK Terminal 6 post Jet Blue..



Nycfly75
2005-12-18, 09:45 PM
Any ideas?

Tower Air
2005-12-18, 10:40 PM
Probally Demolition.

T-Bird76
2005-12-19, 11:50 AM
The terminal itself is well designed and has plenty of room for future use. I'd be surprised to see it torn down. Even the passenger waiting areas were very well designed for the period they were built in. Yes the waiting areas need a total remodel but they are certainly useable unlike T5's current form. I guess the question is whether or not it’s financially smart to remodel the terminal after B6's new T5 is built? Jet Blue won't be in its new home for many years to come.

I remember when TWA use to use T5 and T6, rather then all the blue you see now everything was TWA red. They use to split their operation using T5 for international and T6 for domestic. One of the problems was connecting from domestic to International. TWA never invested in a connection tube that would have prevented you from having to go through security again. I remember how long the lines were at T5 during TWA's international departure bank. Talk about the good old days seeing all those 747s, L1011s and 767s parked at the gates.

T5 and T6 have such a great history behind them you can't begin to imagine. For those who don't know T6 was built for National Airlines and was named the "Sundome" hence all the floor to ceiling glass in the check-in area to let light in. National was bought out by PanAm in the late 70s and was merged into PA in 1980. National left T6 and TWA moved in. National had some of the greatest slogans in the industry, perhaps my favorite was "Fly the route of the Sun King".

I think out of all the big airlines we think of National is sort of the forgotten airline for whatever reason. In reality they were a big player in Latin America out of Miami, In fact Pan Am got a huge amount of routes when it took over National, those routes later went to UAL. They were a big DC-10 customer with some of their DC-10s going to Northwest after PanAm took the DC-10 out of their fleet. Sadly after the airlines were deregulated PanAm was plagued with a huge amount of debt and an 11 year slide of what was National's most prized routes were sold off year after year until in 1991 PanAm's domestic route structure which they acquired from National was all but gone and PanAm closed down ending what was two airlines long and amazing history which T6 was big part of.

Tower Air
2005-12-19, 09:12 PM
So will the terminals be renumbered? they Can't tear down the TWA term because it has landmark status on it.

moose135
2005-12-19, 10:33 PM
For those who don't know T6 was built for National Airlines and was named the "Sundome" hence all the floor to ceiling glass in the check-in area to let light in. National was bought out by PanAm in the late 70s and was merged into PA in 1980. National left T6 and TWA moved in.

I was in college working security at Pan Am during the merger, and would occasionally drop off guards at T6. I don't know that I ever flew out of there on TWA, I think by the time they moved in there, I was in the USAF, and not able to fly non-rev on TWA any longer.

jfklganyc
2006-01-12, 12:35 PM
I always like T6 better than T5 and was sad to see TWA abandon it in the late 90s. Actually, the whole complex brings back sad memories of the declined of TWA. In a 5 year period they went from a bustling hub in two terminals to a pathetic operation in the north side of T5. While I always will love TWA, they certainly left JFK high and dry in their last few years.

With that said, I am pleased at what B6 has done with T6, but it is way too overcrowded now and was never built to handle 100+ flights a day.

Plans are to knock it down with the opening of T5. Personally I think it would be good to keep as a domestic terminal with common-use gates.