I'm not sure that BIA & AA ever became truly amalgamated what with a Head Office remaining in Redhill and an Operational HQ in Norwich, there was a 'them & us' friction between the two which I recall settled down somewhat following the relocation to Stansted.
Based myself in Norwich wef 1985 of course I heard the AA side of things, that the HPR7's days were numbered, that there was only so much profit to be had on island routes, the 1-11 IT operation was losing money and the story doing the rounds was that PV having married one of the directors daughter's was given the 1-11's and the BIA name to 'go and play with those' having, the group, tried unsuccessfully to sell that side of the operation … Amusing though because once any AUK F28's had gone they were dry-leasing back two of their previous 1-11's to operate the Scotland/AMS routes.
AUK also supposedly set-up Manx Airlines in partnership with BMA but that was more like AUK giving BIA's IOM operation away with the newly formed Manx becoming part of the Airlines of Britain group along with BMA, Loganair, London City Airways and any others that may have slipped my mind.
Previous posts mention F27 serviceability etc. but a lack of serviceability certainly set us enough challenges in Ops combined with operating a fleet of some five Sheds which were even worse, not to mention the two dry-leased BIA 'Geriatric Jets' I held the record for sub-chartering in some 7 or 8 aircraft during one 90 minutes lunch period, we were regularly chartering the likes of BAF VC8's, South-East Air HPR7's, TalAir Bandit/Shed, Kondair PA31, KLM anything up to a DC9 size, Paramount MD83, Air Holland (or something like that) Convair 580, Brown Air G1, Gill Air's first SD330 G-RNMO (Geronimo) and these are just some that spring to mind.
And didn't the F27's have two (to be sure to be sure) green lights for the nosewheel?