 Some of these wholly privately owned, independent airlines, notably British United Airways, were IATA members themselves.However, at the time IATA was dominated by majority or wholly state-owned "flag carriers", which used that organisation to frame rules that were designed to protect them from what they considered excessive and unwarranted competition by independent airlines.The relevant rule stipulated that transatlantic charter flights were permissible provided that the only reason to transport a group of passengers who wanted to travel together on the same aircraft was those passengers' shared interest and that all of them were members of the same club, rather than carrying a group of "unconnected" individuals on a specially chartered aircraft whose sole purpose of travelling together on that aircraft was to avail themselves of a cheap flight.