My dad worked for TWA. And back in 1996 I was living in Boston. My parents visited me after a trip to Europe, the last leg being CDG-BOS. They flew in Ambassador Class. It was just before the JFK disaster. They came off that flight absolutely raving about the food and service. I cannot believe that, at the time, United came anywhere close. If I recall correctly, what impressed most was the attempt at really deluxe presentation and the quantity of the food on offer. Although I technically also had travel privileges, I had already started working by that point and could not risk space available. When I flew it was out of my pocket and always coach. I remember hanging on every word and wondering when I would have the luck to "turn left" on a transoceanic flight. Funny enough, within a year I had to go to Hong Kong on business so got to fly United on the upper deck. I was so let down in comparison to what my parent's described. And on that same trip I got upgraded to first class on the return journey. That was marginally better but still nothing like the white glove experience my parents claimed to have experienced. On a second trip in 1998 I flew Cathay Pacific out of NYC back to HK. And holy cow what a difference from UAL. That really made me realize that UAL wasn't even in the same league. Cathay had already introduced personal entertainment equipment at every seat whereas United had the old ceiling mounted poor quality video monitors.

However, TWA's finances were deteriorating badly after the 1996 catastrophe so my guess is by the late 90's the service was greatly watered down.