of major growth for low-cost overseas travel by US tour groups. The first two examples sported a new natural metal "Silver Palace" livery, which replaced the Modern Air Transport/MAT fuselage titles used in previous schemes with Modern Air titles. Modern Air's first jet, Convair CV-990A N5609, was handed over to the airline in February 1967. It was based in Miami and contracted by GAC to operate charter flights for prospective investors in its real estate development projects in Florida and Arizona. Modern received its second CV-990A, N5605, the following month. This aircraft was repainted in the contemporary Air France livery, in preparation of a short-term wet lease beginning in April that enabled the French national airline to introduce high-capacity jet aircraft on four daily round trips between Paris Orly and London Heathrow while awaiting delivery of its own Boeing 727-200s. Modern Air's CV-990s were configured in a spacious 139-seat, single-class seating arrangement. The aircraft's standard flight deck crew complement comprised three, including a flight engineer holding a mechanic's and inspector's licence. On flights involving long overwater sectors a navigator supplied by a third party joined the other three flight deck crew. The slow and difficult integration of the old Gulf American Airlines and pre-GAC Modern Air workforces into a combined post-merger workforce encountered a further obstacle when Modern Air hired former military pilots to crew its new jets. This resulted in the two separate, unionised legacy pilot groups, as well as another unionised group representing flight attendants across both airlines and pre-GAC Modern Air flight engineers being joined by another, non-unionised group. In addition, the airline's problems were compounded by reliability issues and high costs. It was at this point that GAC called on the services of experienced senior airline manager and aviation consultant, Morten Sternoff Beyer, to head up the airline and manage the integration as well as turn around its fortunes. In addition to its new CV-990 jets, Modern Air also leased a pair of Boeing 727-100Cs from Executive Jet Aviation in September 1967 as DC-7 replacements and to enable eliminating the intermediate stop in Miami to change flights as the 727's short-field capability permitted direct flights into Fort Myers' original airport at Page Field from GAC's prospective customers' points of origin with a viable payload. It also began negotiations with Boeing for the purchase of a single 727-200 and two 727-100s direct from the manufacturer. Following a