Just a few comments on the historical facts that have been shared here....
Originally Posted by
artvandalay
TWA's business class was called Ambassador Class, and it was introduced in the early 80's on their 747s and L-1011s. Seats have improved since then. Inflight service has not.
Originally Posted by
seat38a
Must have been changed to Trans World One at some point. Based on this video, it looks like TWA's version of Continental's Business First.
artvandalay is corect. TWA's business class was introduced in the early/mid-1980s as Ambassador Class.
At some point in the early 1990s, Ambassador Class disappeared and First Class was renamed "Trans World One." At this point, the wide-body aircraft were reverted from three cabins of service to just two: Trans World One and Economy.
The only downside to TWA from UK to US was that you flew out of LGW instead of LHR.
Originally Posted by
JimInOhio
Weren't the flights from LGW only on secondary routes?
Absolutely not. I flew to and from the main STL hub several times a year during the period 1985-1991, always direct from/to LGW. I believe that at one time TWA did fly from LHR (perhaps to JFK? but you could also fly to JFK from LGW, which I also did), but I never flew TATL out of LHR until I switched to United. The Ambassadors Club was located at LGW. There was no TWA club at LHR in my time.
Originally Posted by
JimInOhio
That's because STL was not one of TWA's original TATL routes. Back in that era, the UK limited who could fly certain routes to/from LHR and from where. TWA certainly flew to LHR from JFK, ORD, and I think LAX (and SFO?), too. Most if not everything else had to go to LGW.
TWA had a long history of serving Heathrow Airport and for many years was one of only two US airlines allowed access to Heathrow - the other being Pan Am.
In June 1985, TWA was flying from Heathrow to: Boston (1x daily), Chicago O'Hare (1x daily), Los Angeles (1x daily), New York Kennedy (4x daily) and Philadelphia (1x daily).
It was during the summer of 1985 that TWA added service to Gatwick with a daily flight to the Saint Louis hub. Saint Louis was not authorized as a gateway to Heathrow under the bilateral agreement in place at the time.
In the summer of 1987, TWA added a second route out of Gatwick: A daily flight to Baltimore. Like Saint Louis, Baltimore was not authorized as a gateway to Heathrow.
In 1991, TWA finalized a deal with American that sold three London routes as well the right to serve Heathrow for $445 million. (A decade later, American would purchase ALL of TWA's assets for only $740 million.)
TWA's last departure from Heathrow was on July 1, 1991.
After the sale of the routes, TWA was left operating from Gatwick to Baltimore, Frankfurt, Philadelphia and Saint Louis.
TWA later sold its route authority between Gatwick and Baltimore and Philadelphia to USAir.
By the time TWA was acquired by American, a lone Saint Louis-London Gatwick flight is all that remained.