TWA to Lay Off 3,000, Citing Mideast Tension : Airlines: It has had to cancel many flights because it couldn’t get insurance in the wake of the Gulf War. Unions say they will fight the cuts.

NEW YORK —  Trans World Airlines, its business pounded by the Mideast crisis and the weak economy, said Sunday that it plans to lay off 3,000, or 10% of its work force, beginning today.

The layoffs, at least 394 of which will be in Los Angeles, were necessitated by TWA’s decision to lop dozens of flights from its schedule, the airline said.

“This is a very difficult time for the entire industry,” TWA general counsel Mark Buckstein said in a telephone interview. “And we are no exception. These are times when the prudent carriers must gear up for survival, and that is what we are doing.”

Buckstein said no cities in Europe would be dropped entirely from the airline’s schedule. However, frequency of flights will be cut, he said, and smaller planes than the Boeing 747 now flown on most routes will be used. He said the number of nonstop flights between Los Angeles and London would be cut to three from five a week.

Buckstein said he hoped that the moves would be temporary. Other cuts are being worked out, he said.

Pan American World Airways, TWA’s major American competitor, said it was studying similar action. “We have not done anything yet,” said Pan Am spokesman Jeffrey Kriendler. “We are looking at it right now.”

TWA and Pan Am, as well as other carriers, said last week that they were temporarily canceling service to some Mideast and Mediterranean cities, including Tel Aviv, Cairo, Athens and Istanbul, because they were unable to obtain increased insurance coverage.

Buckstein said the largest group to be laid off will be flight attendants. The Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, the union which represents the attendants, said it would fight the layoffs of 1,500 of its members.

Mary Ellen Miller, a union official, told members in a recorded message left on the union’s headquarters phone that the union is “vehemently protesting” the TWA move. The message added that the union also was exploring legal options on grounds that the airline did not give the employees proper notice.

According to the flight attendants’ recorded message, there will be 800 layoffs in New York, 394 in Los Angeles and 229 in St. Louis, where TWA has its major hub. The flight attendants official said the union had been informed Saturday that the last day that affected employees would be paid is today.

Kent Scott, chairman of TWA’s Master Executive Council of the Air Line Pilots Assn., said that 100 pilots were being laid off and that “there may be more to follow.” He also said the airline was violating a union contract. The airline was required to give 30 days’ notice, he said, but gave only three. Spokesmen for the airline’s machinists could not be reached Sunday.

Analysts said many airlines are reducing the number of seats they are flying because of declining demand caused by the economy and the Mideast crisis.

“They are adjusting capacity to the demand,” said Paul Turk, an analyst with Avmark Aviation Services, a consulting company in Arlington, Va. Turk added that just at the time of year when leisure travel declines, many companies have also stopped allowing employees to travel overseas. He said his own company canceled one worker’s trip last week because it could not increase his life insurance.

Ralph E. Connor, owner of El Monte Travel Center, said he was not too concerned about the cutbacks. “It is not going to have much impact,” he said. “We might not be able to find flights on the time or day we want, but we’ll find a close proximity.” Noting that last week one flight flew across the Atlantic with eight passengers, he said: “Airlines can’t operate very long with that kind of traffic.”

But John Zorek, owner of Mayfair Travel in New York, said TWA was simply using the war as an excuse.

“I have been telling my people for months not to book TWA,” he said. “They used to be good. They have fallen down on the job. Now they have lousy service.”

Some observers said that although it might be true that TWA is canceling the flights because of the Mideast situation, it was doing poorly financially even before last August, when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

“They have long been in trouble,” said John W. Mattis, an independent analyst in New York. “The current situation precipitated the crisis.”

TWA is owned by financier Carl C. Icahn, who has been shrinking the size of the airline for several years. Once one of the nation’s largest and most respected carriers, it has become struggling and debt-laden of late.

It recently said it would sell its London routes to American Airlines to raise badly needed cash. Some observers thought that the new service cuts might be designed to appeal to the government--to persuade it to approve the London routes sale.

TWA’s Buckstein said TWA has turned over three planes to the U.S. military under its emergency requisition authority, has committed another three 747s to the military and is negotiating to add one.