entailed re-configuring a total of 49 aircraft in a 36-seat, single class layout. BEA referred to its re-configured, all-tourist class Vikings as "Admiral" class [aircraft]. In 1952, BEA carried its one-millionth passenger and introduced the first of 20 Airspeed Ambassadors. These cost £3 million and featured a 49-seat mixed-class layout. BEA's first commercial Ambassador service left London for Paris on 13 March 1952. Flights to Milan and Vienna began the following month. These aircraft introduced the airline's passengers to new standards of comfort and speed. Compared with BEA's older piston types, the Ambassador's flight time from London to Milan, for example, reduced by two hours. In June 1952 BEA re-launched the pre-war mid-day Silverwing service pioneered by Imperial Airways on the London–Paris route with 40-seat all-first class Ambassadors. The Ambassador was BEA's last major piston-engined type. It referred to the aircraft as "Elizabethan" class to commemorate the accession of Elizabeth II that year. Also in 1952, BEA made Jersey-based independent airline Jersey Airlines an associate to develop a network of routes within the Channel Islands and expand services between the islands and the UK mainland. In 1953, BEA began receiving the first 16 Viscount 701 turboprops it had ordered in August 1950. The first of these "Discovery" class aircraft entered service with 47 mixed-class seats in April 1953, and the first production aircraft (G-AMAV) went on to win the transport class of the 1953 London to Christchurch, New Zealand, air race, with BEA MD Peter Masefield as team manager and co-pilot. 1953 was also the year Flightmaster, BEA's first mechanical reservations system, was installed. This enabled the simultaneous display of seat availability on 32,000 flights. Between February and April 1954, BEA's expanding Viscount fleet replaced Elizabethans between London, Nice and Rome, and on regional routes from Manchester and Birmingham. By that time, BEA had shifted its main operating base to Heathrow, which became the London terminal for all international flights. Although it continued to use Northolt as a London terminal for domestic flights serving Manchester, Edinburgh, Renfrew (Glasgow), Aberdeen, Belfast and the Channel Islands which by that time were mainly operated by 36-seater "Admiral" class Vikings, these were wound down in favour of concentrating all of BEA's London flights at Heathrow. A Jersey-bound Pionair in October 1954 was BEA's final flight from Northolt. The Viscount's commercial success had made it the leading short-haul aircraft in Europe in the mid-1950s. This