regional carrier to compete against government owned Trans Canada Airlines which later became Air Canada. According to the June 1, 1968 Eastern Provincial system timetable, the airline was operating all scheduled flights with 40-passenger Herald, 24-passenger Douglas DC-3 and 46-passenger Carvair aircraft with the latter being a converted version of the Douglas DC-4 which could transport either passengers or freight in an all-cargo configuration (the airline was operating both passenger and scheduled all-cargo flights with the Carvair at this time). This same timetable also includes charter information for a number of aircraft types operated by the airline in 1968, including not only the Herald, DC-3 and Carvair but also the four-passenger Beechcraft Baron, six-passenger de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, eight-passenger de Havilland Canada DHC-2T Turbo Beaver (which was a turboprop conversion of the original piston engine Beaver) and the ten-passenger de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter. The mixed-bag operation continued until 1970. The 1960s saw EPA operate a varied fleet of 36 aircraft, including four Handley Page Heralds, six PBY Cansos, two Curtiss C-46s, two Sikorsky S-55 helicopters, one Douglas DC-4, five DC-3 workhorses, and the other smaller aircraft types mentioned above. The airline had a distinguished decade with work in India and Pakistan and they enjoyed the novelty of being the first Canadian airline in the new Soviet bloc Eastern Europe when EPA operated a cargo charter into Czechoslovakia. 1970s By 1970, EPA had started to resemble a modern airline. That year, EPA's bush operations were sold to some senior staff as a separate airline - Labrador Airways, now Air Labrador. EPA decided to standardize with Boeing 737-200 jetliners in the 1970s. The airline acquired seven of the jets from Boeing. The same colour scheme that EPA developed in the 1960s was adopted. They were painted white with a silver belly and an orange stripe along the window line. The orange gander logo was put on the tail, and the nose cone was painted black. Inside, passengers sat in flower patterned seats of various colours of purple, orange, and yellow - fashionable colours in the 1970s. EPA expressed an intent in the early 1970s to have an all-jet fleet as soon as practically possible. As it turned out, this was never to happen. EPA entered the decade with three Handley Page Heralds and two DC-3s. The Heralds were responsible for flights into Iles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec and Charlo, Chatham and Fredericton, New