in September 1939 all commercial and private flying within the UK had been severely restricted by the government due to the possibility of civil flights encountering enemy aircraft. To offset this halting of civilian air traffic limited aerial services were instead carried out from 1940 onwards by the state-owned and operated British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) to a number of destinations, both European, and worldwide. On 1 January 1946, the Attlee government lifted wartime restrictions on civil flying in the United Kingdom. Within Europe, this resulted in BOAC resuming Imperial Airways' pre-war routes to continental Europe augmented by Royal Air Force Transport Command non-military flights from Croydon Airport, using Douglas Dakotas in RAF livery flown by crews in RAF uniforms, and UK domestic air services operated by the Associated Airways Joint Committee (AAJC), which had been formed of several pre-war charter companies on 27 June 1940. BOAC formed a British European Airways division on 1 January 1946 in anticipation of that year's Civil Aviation Act. Following its formation, BOAC's new division began taking over Transport Command's operations from 4 March 1946. On that day, it inaugurated a weekly Dakota service from Northolt to Madrid and Gibraltar, followed by additional Dakota services to Stavanger and Oslo, Copenhagen, as well as Athens via Marseille and Rome. On each of these flights, half of the Dakota's 16 seats were reserved for UK government officials. Initially, crews continued to wear BOAC uniforms. Although some services still used Croydon for some time, the main operating base moved to RAF Northolt. On 1 August 1946, the Civil Aviation Act 1946 was given Royal Assent and passed into law. This established BEA as a crown corporation in its own right (British European Airways Corporation) and transferred primary responsibility for scheduled air services from the UK to Europe (including the British Isles) to BEA. To fulfill its role as the new short- and medium-haul British flag carrier, BEA was organised into two divisions based at Northolt and Liverpool Speke respectively, with the former responsible for all scheduled services to the Continent and the latter for all scheduled services within the British Isles. The Civil Aviation Act 1946 furthermore provided for nationalisation of private, independent British scheduled airlines and gave BEA a legal monopoly as the sole short-haul scheduled British airline. Due to BEA's inability to take over the UK domestic flights of independent scheduled operators such as Railway