Pratt & Whitney dropped the PT2 project in March 1955 due to expected unreliability, high specific fuel consumption and high operating costs,[citation needed] though the T34 military version of the engine powered the Douglas C-133 freighter, which was also plagued with unreliability.

The new design used the L-1049G fuselage, the new 150 ft (46 m) wing and four Wright R-3350 988 TC18-EA-2 turbocompound radial engines, allowing the Starliner to fly nonstop from California to Europe.

Lockheed said the new L-1649A would deliver 58 passengers over a range of 6,500 mi (10,500 km) at 350 mph (560 km/h), or from Paris to New York City three hours faster than the DC-7C.

In September 1957, a Starliner made the first nonstop flight from Los Angeles to London; this was captained by TWA’s chief pilot, Bob Buck, who wrote an extensive magazine article describing the experience.

[7] Boeing 707s replaced the last TWA transatlantic passenger L-1649 in October 1961; 707s and Convair 880s displaced them from domestic scheduled flights in December 1962.

Starting in April 1958 Air France L-1649s flew from Paris to Anchorage to Tokyo, but they were not allowed to fly to the west coast of the United States.

Lockheed converted two of Lufthansa's Starliners to freighters after the Boeing 707 had replaced them on the transatlantic passenger flights in 1960.

The DC-7C ended up selling more airframes than the Starliner, which had greater range than its rival but was expensive ($3,000,000 USD) and entered service a year later.

Four Starliners still exist; after ten years of work Lufthansa abandoned restoring one to flying condition.