When the details of this supposedly confidential agreement were leaked to the press, Caledonian, which had expressed its interest in acquiring BUA itself and had begun negotiations with BUA's senior management on 5 March 1970 to make an offer to take over the ailing airline to create the "Second Force" as envisaged in the Edwards report, immediately applied to the ATLB for the revocation of all of BUA's scheduled route licences, requesting them to be transferred to itself.