exchange control regime, which limited the amount of foreign exchange British holidaymakers were allowed to take out of the country as well as by the loss of the company's Caribbean licence. Poor decisions at senior and executive level, the end of the trooping and migrant contracts and economic difficulties had made British Eagle an increasingly unviable business. The ATLB and some industry peers regarded the firm as seriously undercapitalised and saw this as a major cause of financial instability. The management's refusal to contemplate a fundamental change in the way the business was run, including a change in the top management itself, undermined the confidence of Hambros Bank, the airline's main creditor, in its prospects. These circumstances led to the withdrawal of Hambros's support. At the time of its bankruptcy, British Eagle operated 25 aircraft and employed a staff of 2,300, including 220 pilots. The failed company owed its creditors £5½ million; Rolls-Royce and Esso, who were owed £630,000 and £300,000 respectively, headed the list of creditors. Following British Eagle's overnight collapse, other airlines moved quickly to take over the abandoned scheduled routes. Former rival Cambrian Airways assumed the Liverpool–Glasgow and Liverpool–Heathrow routes while BEA applied for the European routes from Heathrow. BUA added an extra daily round-trip between Gatwick and Glasgow and applied to serve some of the European routes as well. Dan-Air took over London–Newquay services, which it operated from Gatwick for one season from May 1969. Dan-Air also won the contest for the Travel Trust charter contracts for the 1969 summer season against stiff competition from BEA. These had originally been awarded to British Eagle and entailed operating Travel Trust's entire summer charter programme on behalf of its subsidiaries Lunn-Poly and Everyman Travel, the bankrupt airline's former in-house tour operators. These contracts provided additional work for four Dan-Air aircraft—two Comets and two One-Elevens. The latter were former American Airlines aircraft and the first One-Elevens to join Dan-Air's fleet. The Heathrow scheduling committee's refusal to allow Dan-Air access to British Eagle's former main operating base resulted in Dan-Air opening a base at Luton for the Lunn-Poly/Everyman flying programmes from London. In addition to the 1969 summer programme, Travel Trust also awarded Dan-Air a "time charter" contract for the following three years (1970–1972). This in turn resulted in Dan-Air acquiring two further One-Elevens that had originally been operated by British Eagle. In addition to the two former British Eagle