Trans World Airlines

Also known as TWA, Transcontinental & Western Air

Cause of death

Killed by merger

with killed by cost as a contributing factor

American Airlines bought the assets and retired the brand within the year.

TWA was for decades the other American flag carrier, the one Howard Hughes controlled and the one with the Saarinen terminal at JFK. A leveraged buyout in the 1980s loaded it with debt it never escaped, and after three bankruptcies American Airlines acquired it in 2001. The final flight landed that December. Its terminal survives as a hotel, which is a better fate than most entries here get.