twa was one of the first airlines, after delta air lines, to embrace the spoke-hub distribution paradigm and was one of the first with the boeing 747. it planned to use the 747 along with the supersonic transport to whisk people between the west/midwest (via kansas city) and new york city (via john f. kennedy international airport) to europe and other world destinations. as part of this strategy, twa's hub airports were to have gates close to the street. the twa-style airport design proved impractical when hijackings to cuba in the late 1960s caused a need for central security checkpoints.