of inclusive tour flights from Heathrow and other British airports. Lunn Poly was its largest tour operator customer. Waning prospects The introduction of the £50 foreign exchange limit per passenger had caused a major contraction in the UK package tour holiday market during 1968. This left British Eagle with surplus charter capacity, especially for the main summer season. In common with other UK independent airlines that faced the same problem, such as Dan-Air, Invicta International Airlines and Laker Airways, British Eagle redeployed this surplus capacity to the burgeoning West Berlin charter market, where access was restricted to US, UK and French airlines. This resulted in British Eagle stationing a Bristol Britannia at West Berlin's Tegel Airport for the duration of the 1968 summer season. In mid-1968, BOAC applied to the ATLB seeking revocation of British Eagle's Caribbean charter licence due to alleged irregularities in the conduct of the tour services. BOAC's complaint included claims that British Eagle was abusing the terms and conditions of its inclusive tour licence by promoting services as if they were scheduled services. The ATLB found in BOAC's favour and revoked British Eagle's Caribbean licence at the end of the summer season. To circumvent UK regulatory restrictions, the airline proposed to replace its IT flights between the UK and the Caribbean with a scheduled service between Nassau and Luxembourg through its Bahamian subsidiary, Eagle International Airlines (Bahamas), as the ATLB's and BOT's jurisdiction did not extend beyond the UK. At the end of the 1968 summer season, British Eagle issued redundancy notices to 418 employees in London and Liverpool and announced the closure of its Speke maintenance base. These economy measures were put in place to counter a major business downturn, as a result of a significant decline in the IT market following the introduction of stricter foreign exchange rules for overseas travel, the end of the Far East trooping and Australian migrant contracts in March, and general economic problems. Bankruptcy and aftermath British Eagle and its sister companies ceased trading at midnight on 6 November 1968 due to growing financial problems and went into voluntary liquidation two days later. The airline's last-ever aircraft movement was the arrival of a Bristol Britannia from Rotterdam at Heathrow the following day. The financial crisis leading to the collapse of Britain's second-largest contemporary independent airline had been triggered by the devaluation of sterling and the tightening of the existing