TWA’s London Route Sale to American Is Upheld

ST. LOUIS —  A divided federal appeals court Friday upheld the sale of four London routes by Trans World Airlines to American Airlines, clearing the way for American to get into London’s Heathrow Airport next week.

Missouri politicians and TWA’s unions fear the deal will kill TWA, however.

In a 2-1 opinion, the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed two Department of Transportation orders to stand, officially clearing the way for the transfers of three of the routes to take effect Monday.

American Airlines has been advertising and selling tickets for those routes--from New York, Los Angeles and Boston--since the sale was approved by Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner on April 24.

A fourth route--Chicago-London--was allowed Jan. 30, and American has been operating it since then.

The city of St. Louis and three TWA unions had challenged Skinner’s decisions, saying it was not in the best interests of the general public or TWA.

“Maybe TWA ultimately will go under, at least go into reorganization,” Circuit Judge Richard Arnold wrote in the panel’s decision, citing the airline’s heavy debts. “The issue is not whether the transfers will make TWA viable but whether it will more likely than not be more viable with the transfers than without them.”

TWA sold the three most recent routes for $445 million and would like to use that money to buy back some of its $3 billion in debt. It sold the Chicago-London route for $110 million.

Circuit Judge John Gibson concurred with Friday’s opinion, and Circuit Judge C. Arlen Beam dissented, basing his opposition mainly on the transfer of the New York-to-London route.

American’s purchase of the routes into Heathrow was similar to another transfer of power over the Atlantic from the weak to the strong, when United Airlines purchased lucrative London routes in April from Pan American World Airways. The deals put the two biggest U.S. airlines into Europe’s most desirable airport.