Copyright MCMLVI (1956); "compiled for Trans World Airlines"; C.S. Hammond and Company publishers, Maplewood, N.J.; hardbound; very good condition with with gilt TWA Ambassadors Club emblem on front cover; no dust jacket.
Description -
Includes an original business card of the "Senior Sales Representive" including the TWA address:
TWA Building, 240 Stockton Street
San Francisco, Calif
Phone: YU. 2-5800
Especially compiled for Trans World Airlines in 1956, this rare travel guide and atlas was created for the airline's worldly travelers and features full-color maps, photographs, flags and distance tables, travel tips and city maps. Includes index, distance chart, table of travel tips by country. B/W photos throughout.
Trans World Airlines history (from Wikipedia) -
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline that existed from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with Ford Trimotors. With American, United, and Eastern, it was one of the "Big Four" domestic airlines in the United States formed by the Spoils Conference of 1930.
Howard Hughes acquired control of TWA in 1939, and after World War II led the expansion of the airline to serve Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, making TWA a second unofficial flag carrier of the United States after Pan Am. Hughes gave up control in the 1960s, and the new management of TWA acquired Hilton International and Century 21 in an attempt to diversify the company's business.
As the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 led to a wave of airline failures, start-ups, and takeovers in the United States, TWA was spun off from its holding company in 1984. Carl Icahn acquired control of TWA and took the company private in a leveraged buyout in 1988. TWA became saddled with debt, sold its London routes, underwent Chapter 11 restructuring in 1992 and 1995, and was further stressed by the explosion of TWA Flight 800 in 1996.
In 2001, TWA filed for a third and final bankruptcy and was acquired by American Airlines. American laid off many former TWA employees in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks and closed its St. Louis hub in 2003.