BIA and Air Anglia

[Phileas Fogg]

Don't forget these little beasts:

[Midland 331]

'KK was British Midland's first turbine equipment, bought new from Handley Page, and a source much pride.

"Flight" Magazine one featured an air-to-air photo of it passing the yet-to-be-completed Castle Donington.

[Midland 331]

'KK was British Midland's first turbine equipment, bought new from Handley Page in 1965, and a source much pride.

"Flight" Magazine one featured an air-to-air photo of it passing the yet-to-be-completed Castle Donington.

[snooky]

In flight film of G-ASKK Flight and landing G-ASKK aeroplane - YouTube

[plassey1]

AQ did not go into administration in 1972. There had been a major revue of the company and it was decided that it would specialise in scheduled services up and down the east coast and to Amsterdam, this resulted in the drop off in in the charter activities.

[Proplinerman]

BIA and Air Anglia's successor

Shot of a KLM UK Fokker 50 in 2002:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/489750...in/photostream

And of one of their Fokker 100s in 2001:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/489750...-9DoM2J-8MjuZs

[DCDriver]

Air Anglia

I was a young FO in Air Anglia in the mid-70’s. Here are a few old pics I took; sorry about the quality of some of the scans.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76208708@N08/15871505236

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76208708@N08/15895327771

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76208708@N08/15277683153

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76208708@N08/15895329611

We still hold reunions 40 yrs on because AQ was a really pleasant place to work, with an almost family-like atmosphere.

[Airbanda]

Nice pics DcDriver. Thanks for posting.

[Herod]

Have to agree DcDriver, and AirUK generally continued to be a nice place to work. I did a little over 24 years with them; Air Anglia, AirUK, KLMuk and buzz.

[WHBM]

Have heard Eastern Airways described as Air Anglia reincarnated.


Air Anglia really developed their "east side" emphasis from the development of the North Sea exploration, gas in their southern sector before oil in the northern, for which their base at Norwich served well, there were other points along the way that were important for these customers, such as Teesside (difficult to believe nowadays), and then these customers moved further north to Aberdeen and the airline followed them.

BIA was really the smaller aircraft bits of the old British United that B Cal didn't want, and those in turn had come from various mergers but were focused on Gatwick, Jersey and the Isle of Man, concentrating on holiday places that were declining in summer and provided very little in winter. They did towards the merger time absorb the schedules of BAF at Southend, definitely on the east side, which had been separately split from BUA, but the actual aircraft used continued to be BAF ones chartered in, BIA just having taken over the commercial side of the operation.

[bean]

"concentrating on holiday places that were declining in summer"
WHBM. For your information Jersey recorded it's highest passenger numbers ever in 1978 (just before the Merger with Air Anglia)
I also recall a conversation I had with the BIA/AirUk station manager in Jersey in 1980 where he asserted most emphaticaly that the BIA operation was by far the more profitable operation of the two airlines. I'm sure he had more inside knowledge than you
Also: If you believe that Eastern Airwys is "Air Anglia reincarnated" I suggest you read this thread http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airpo...irways-66.html

[esa-aardvark]

Air UK commuting

I did about 18 years as a passenger Norwich to Ams on Monday morning, back Friday evening.That would have been about '77 until I retired in '95. A very nice airline until taken over by KLM.
John

[fantom]

Don't forget the Exec Fleet !

[Herod]

Blimey! We got to post 33 before Fantom appeared. Nice picture.

[DCDriver]

No, indeed I hadn't - I was just waiting for you to post that piccie!

[Porrohman]

I seem to recall that Air Anglia operated some piston airliners out of EDI in the late 70s. One was a Swiss Convair 440 leased from Air Sea Services and another was a Martin 404 that was briefly leased from an American operator. There may have been others. I think they were used mainly on the newly introduced Paris route while waiting for the F28 to be delivered. Does anyone else recall / have more details of these operations? I tried searching Google and Wikipedia but couldn't find any mention of them. Martin 404s hardly ever operated in Europe AFAIK so its appearance would have been something of rarity.

[Fareastdriver]

I flew Aberdeen to Norwich and back a couple of times in the late seventies with Air Anglia. At that time during the oil boom is was said that the fare on that route was the highest £/mile in the World.

[Porrohman]

Another of the piston airliners used by Air Anglia out of EDI in 1977/78 may have been a Scanbee Convair 340?

[Wander00]

I may be wrong but ISTR that in the late 60s some of the Varsity pilots on 115 Sqn at Watton moonlighted for Air Anglia

[OUAQUKGF Ops]

A

Originally Posted by Wander00

I may be wrong but ISTR that in the late 60s some of the Varsity pilots on 115 Sqn at Watton moonlighted for Air Anglia

Air Anglia not formed until 1970. Can you give me a name or two? Rather unlikely as they would have had to possess a Commercial Licence which I suppose is quite possible if they were shortly due to leave the service. That said when I joined the company in 1971 the majority of Captains were ex RAF. I can remember five fine pilots who sported uniform service ribbons.