PART TWO
In 1968, the jet age in BWIA continued with the purchase of two Boeing 707-138B aircraft from Qantas Airlines in Australia.
In a 1971 non-cash transaction, BWIA and Braniff Airlines entered into an aircraft swap agreement.
In 1974, BWIA increased the size of its Boeing 707 fleet by purchasing four Boeing 707- 351C from Northwest Airlines and two Boeing 707-321C from Pan Am.
The London route was restarted in 1975 using Boeing 707-321C aircraft.
Also, in 1974, the TT government started an airline: TT Air Services (TTAS) to operate the domestic airbridge.
TTAS operated a fleet of six British Avro Hawker Siddeley HS 748 turboprop aircraft.
In February 1978, BWIA pilots went on strike over the dismissal of a colleague.
After the pilots ignored a call to return to work, BWIA terminated the entire pilot body which led to the grounding of the airline for eight months.
After the strike was settled, the vast majority of the pilots were re-employed.
Parliament subsequently established the TT (BWIA International) Airways Corporation through Act 50 of 1978 which was assented to on December 28, 1978.
Under the provisions of the act, the assets, liabilities and obligations of British West Indian Airways Ltd, a company incorporated on June 24, 1948, and TT Air Services Ltd, a company incorporated on May 24, 1974, were vested in the new corporation under an Airline Undertaking Vesting Order.
This effectively consolidated the operations of BWIA Airways Ltd and TT Air Services Ltd (TTAS) into a single airline which maintained the existing livery with the steel pan logo on the tail and the TT flag adjacent to the "BWIA International" on the fuselage.
Banker Philip Rochford was appointed the chairman of the board of the corporation.
The government assumed the responsibility for all the outstanding debts and the new corporation commenced operations with a clean balance sheet.
The government acquired four new Lockheed L1011-500 aircraft for BWIA to operate long-haul routes, in particular routes to London and other European cities such as Frankfurt, Zurich and Cologne.
The government also acquired five DC-9 aircraft, four DC9-51s and one DC9-34CF convertible freighter to operate intra-Caribbean routes.
The airline completed the phasing out of Boeing 707 fleet by 1983.
Two of the Boeing 707- 351C with the large cargo doors were given to the Barbados-based joint venture cargo airline Caricargo and represented the TT government’s equity in the company.
In 1986, BWIA leased its first McDonnell Douglas MD-83 from Irish Aerospace to replace the McDonnell Douglas DC fleet.
The MD83 had the range to operate flights into New York and Toronto.
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The airline eventually operated nine MD-83 aircraft with the last three being equipped with the Electronic Flight Instrument System (EFIS) cockpits, a flight instrument display system that displays flight data electronically rather than electro-mechanically as was the case with th
