Brunswick until 1974 when they were sold to British Air Ferries. EPA started jet service into the northern New Brunswick cities while a Hawker Siddeley HS 748 twin turboprop was acquired to replace the Heralds on the flights to Iles-de-la-Madeleine. 1972 and 1973 were good years for EPA. The number of passengers carried grew dramatically every year from 1969 until 1973. The company expanded, starting jet services into Saint John and Fredericton (New Brunswick) and Stephenville (Newfoundland). New employees were hired and EPA was successful in obtaining a Foreign Air Carrier Permit for the United States. EPA had interest in Sydney to Boston and Halifax to Portland and Bangor (Maine), but these routes never materialized. Instead, the company began to fly charters to Florida and the Caribbean in 1974. Negotiations were begun with de Havilland Canada and the Canadian federal government for a subsidiary carrier to operate using de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7 turboprops. The Canadian federal application for the new service was rejected two years later and although the company renewed the application in 1977, Atlantic Canada wouldn't see Dash 7s until the mid-1980s when deregulation of the Canadian Aviation industry allowed for the Canadian Pacific feeder carrier Air Atlantic. 1975 was the first year EPA had a loss since entering the jet age in 1969. Over-capacity was partly dealt with by leasing 737s for six-month periods to Wien Air Alaska, Aloha Airlines, and Aer Lingus over the next couple of years. The airline's DC-3s were operated on the Gander-St. Anthony-Goose Bay and Sydney-St.Pierre routes until 1975 when the St. Anthony service was taken over by another carrier and early in 1976 the St. Pierre route was upgraded to a Hawker Siddeley 748. The DC-3 were disposed of—the last piston engined aircraft in EPA's fleet. 1980s In 1981 and 1982, EPA acquired three more Hawker Siddeley HS 748s from Austin Airways, Ghana Airways, and COPA of Panama. These planes were used to feed jet services on flights from Moncton, New Brunswick, Charlottetown, Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. In 1982 EPA set up Air Maritime as a wholly owned subsidiary to operate the 748s. EPA's headquarters were moved from Gander, now no longer a major aviation centre, to Halifax. This allowed EPA to make Halifax a hub of operations and when schedules were coordinated with CP Air in 1983, Halifax became the main point of transit for passengers connecting