Being a commuter airline made this easy, as each of its services consisted of short flights with quick turnaround times, and, with a large number of aircraft available, Bar Harbor had hubs in every city it served.

Peter Monighetti, chief pilot for the airline, was ferrying a Beechcraft 99 airplane from Bangor when the plane crashed on a ridge in Lamoine, Maine.

Monighetti had been making an approach upon Bar Harbor Airport, located across the Jordan River in Trenton, Maine.

Other than the crash in 1985 of a Beechcraft that carried Samantha Smith, the airline did not receive much bad publicity outside New England after the accident.

Also during this decade, the airline bought some Convair CV-600, CASA C-212 Aviocar, Saab 340, Beechcraft 1900, and ATR 42 turboprops, putting them into service immediately.

Bar Harbor began to operate flights under a code-share agreement with Eastern Air Lines, and later with Continental Airlines.

[citation needed] In October 1988, a Bar Harbor commuter flight was involved in an incident where it came much closer than usual to Air Force One, with Ronald Reagan on board, during both plane's descent to Newark, New Jersey; the incident was found to be due to a cumulation of errors at four separate FAA facilities along the east coast.

[8] In 1989 Bar Harbor moved its headquarters to Houston, Texas from Maine after the state refused to renew a multimillion-dollar tax break.

[9] With additional aircraft financing, Texas International Airlines (through Eastern and Continental) acquired a majority interest in Bar Harbor.

After Eastern's strike, bankruptcy filing, and ultimate separation from Texas Air, Bar Harbor too had to be divided between the two carriers.

Bar Harbor Airlines and its parent Eastern Air Lines suffered economically from the Gulf War of 1991.