Well I worked for both Air Anglia and BIA in the days when BIA were primarily operating scheduled services with Heralds. Peter Villa was our Boss and you couldn't meet a nicer more approachable, well-grounded bloke with a bit of an aviation pedigree, (his dad being 'Pancho' in his day, a pilot of some repute). It was a brilliant little airline, superb air/cabin crew and pretty efficient too.
Here is Villa's view on Air Anglia quoted in an article about Air Anglia in 'The Aeroplane' a couple of years ago: "They put 85-seater aeroplanes on what had previously been operated by 44-seat F27s and they put F27s on routes that had been operated by Chieftains. The traffic didn't come up to the requirements. I don't think they had really worked out the market potential - it very rapidly became obvious they were loosing a fortune."
Wilbur Wright and Jim Crampton the founding directors of Air Anglia joined the board of Air UK but soon retired. Probably only too happy to realise their initial investment from all those years before. They both had other well established business interests to pursue.
My erstwhile colleague Phil Chapman Commercial Manager Air Anglia and later with Air UK remarks that the differences between Air Anglia and BIA were like 'Chalk and Cheese'. Air Anglia had a fully automated reservations system BIA did not. Indeed Phil Chapman reveals that Air Anglia once considered buying BIA but at the time it didn't suit Air Anglia to do so.