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
Sendai Airport of the passenger terminal, rendering electrical equipment, transformers and safety equipment inoperable. Operations at Sendai as well as Odate-Noshiro Airport and Sado Airport, which had been controlled by Sendai Airport control tower, were suspended. Some 1300 people were stranded within the terminal until 13 March, when they were evacuated. By 17 March military engineers partially opened the airport for tsunami response flights. To reopen the airport, on 16 March 2011, a U.S. Air Force MC-130P Combat Shadow from the 17th Special Operations Squadron infiltrated a team from the 320th Special Tactics Squadron from Kadena Air Base into Matsushima, Miyagi, then