He took over TWA in 1985 and privatized it. During the next 7 years he gutted the company and made a lot of money for himself.
The 60 Minutes piece made him look like some kind of Robin Hood.
He was more like the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Happily, and very luckily, I was able to leave TWA before their final death-spiral and finish out my career with Nippon Cargo Airlines.
I think the Karabu deal was the final nail in TWA's coffin.
Wiki has a good synopsis of Icahn and TWA:
Airline deregulation hit TWA hard in the 1980s. TWA had badly neglected domestic U.S. expansion at a time when the newly deregulated domestic market was growing at an exponential rate. TWA's holding company, Trans World Corporation, spun off the airline. But the airline became starved for capital after having been spun off. The airline briefly considered selling itself to corporate raider Frank Lorenzo in the 1980s, but ended up selling to corporate raider Carl Icahn in 1985.
Under Icahn's direction, many of its most profitable assets were sold to competitors, much to the detriment of TWA. Icahn also moved the company's headquarters from New York City to his hometown, Mt. Kisco, New York. Icahn was eventually ousted in 1993, though not before the airline was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1992. Icahn emerged unscathed. TWA moved its headquarters from Mt. Kisco to the former headquarters building of McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis soon after Icahn left.
1995 bankruptcy
When Carl Icahn left in 1993, he arranged to have TWA give Karabu Corp., an entity he controlled, the rights to buy TWA tickets at 45 percent off published fares through September 2003. This was named "The Karabu Deal".<4> The ticket program agreement, which began on June 14, 1995, excluded tickets for travel which originated or terminated in St. Louis, Missouri. Tickets were subject to TWA's normal seat assignment and boarding pass rules and regulations, were non-assignable to any other carrier, and were non-endorsable. No commissions were paid to Karabu by TWA for tickets sold under the ticket program agreement.
By agreement dated August 14, 1995, Lowestfare.com LLC, a Karabu wholly owned operating subsidiary, was joined as a party to the ticket program agreement. Pursuant to the ticket program agreement, Lowestfare.com LLC could purchase an unlimited number of system tickets. System tickets are tickets for all applicable classes of service which were purchased by Karabu from TWA at a 45 percent discount from TWA's published fare. In addition to system tickets, Lowestfare.com LLC could also purchase domestic consolidator tickets, which are tickets issued at bulk fare rates and were limited to specified origin/destination city markets and did not permit the holder to modify or refund a purchased ticket. Karabu's purchase of domestic consolidator tickets was subject to a cap of $70 million per year based on the full retail price of the tickets.
Hence, on most TWA flights, Karabu could buy and then sell a sizable portion of the available seats, leaving TWA to pay for its operating cost with the revenue accrued through the sale of any remaining ticket sales. In other words, TWA was flying passengers who were not paying them, but someone else. This deal left the company powerless. If TWA wanted to increase revenue on busy routes by putting a large plane into service, Karabu could only claim more seats. It is estimated TWA was losing around $150 million a year in revenue with this deal.
In trying to ameliorate the Karabu deal, TWA went in and out of bankruptcy in 1995.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_World_Airlines#1990s
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