Originally Posted by GoldenArgosy

Just a few comments on the historical facts that have been shared here....





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.









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.