British Caledonian in the 1970s 31 March 1973 - with the BR airline designator it had inherited from BUA at the time of its formation. This resulted in exclusive use of the BR designator as a prefix for all BCal flight numbers. In 1973, BCal also inaugurated its fourth scheduled domestic trunk route between London Gatwick and Manchester. The new service was contracted to British Island Airways (BIA), BUIA's successor, which operated two daily return trips using its Handley Page Dart Herald turboprops. On 20 March 1974, BCal switched its Gatwick—Paris services to the then brand-new Charles de Gaulle Airport in the northern Paris suburb
Paris–Le Bourget Airport crossing in 1927 in the "Spirit of St. Louis", and had been the departure point two weeks earlier for the French biplane "The White Bird (L'Oiseau blanc)", which took off in its own attempt at a transatlantic flight but then mysteriously disappeared. On 25 June 1940, Adolf Hitler began his first and only tour of Paris, with Albert Speer and an entourage, from Le Bourget Airport. On 16 June 1961, the Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected at Le Bourget Airport. In 1977, Le Bourget was closed to international airline traffic and in 1980 to regional airline traffic, but remains