Air Anglia

Air Anglia was a wholly privately owned, Independent regional British airline formed in 1970. Created as a result of a merger of three smaller operators and based at Norwich Airport, the new entity became an important regional operator during the 1970s serving the Eastern half of Britain. In 1980 Air Anglia merged with three regional rivals to form Air UK.

History

Air Anglia was the result of a three-way merger in 1970 between Anglian Air Charter, Norfolk Airways and Rig Air, three local, air taxi operators based in the East of England. The new airline established its corporate headquarters as well as its main operational and engineering base at Norwich in East Anglia. At the time of formation Norwich Union became its controlling shareholder.

It established itself as an important regional scheduled operator as well as one of the main fixed wing operators supporting the North Sea oil and gas industry during the 1970s.

In 1980 Air Anglia merged with British Island Airways (BIA), Air Wales and Air Westward to form Air UK, at the time the UK's biggest regional airline and its third-largest scheduled operator.

Aircraft operated

Air Anglia operated the following aircraft types at one point or another during its ten-year existence:

• Britten-Norman BN-2A "Islander"
• Cessna 404
• Douglas DC-3 "Dakota"
• Fokker F-27 "Friendship" 100/200 series
• Fokker F-28 "Fellowship" 4000 series
• Piper PA-23 "Aztec"
• Piper PA-31 "Navajo Chieftain"
• Piper "Twin Comanche".

Commercial Developments

Air Anglia commenced operations with a small fleet of Douglas DC-3 "Dakota" piston-engined airliners as well as a number of smaller, "executive" type of aircraft inherited from its predecessors. With these aircraft it mainly operated oil and gas industry support flights from Norwich and Aberdeen as well as Humberside.

In 1974 Air Anglia added a pair of Fokker F-27 "Friendship" turboprops to its fleet. The introduction of these turboprops into the airline's fleet coincided with the launch of its first year-round scheduled services from its Norwich base to Aberdeen via Humberside and Teesside as well as from Norwich to Amsterdam. The scheduled services between Norwich, Humberside, Teesside and Aberdeen allowed Air Anglia to commercially exploit the regular positioning flights it had operated between these points since its inception. Oil and gas industry related business travellers constituted a high proportion of this traffic. The launch of Air Anglia's first international scheduled service to Amsterdam also led to the conclusion of a joint marketing agreement with Dutch flag carrier KLM, at the time the biggest resident operator and dominant scheduled airline at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Under this agreement KLM agreed to host Air Anglia's new Norwich-Amsterdam scheduled service as well as any subsequently launched scheduled services linking regional UK airports not served by the KLM group with Amsterdam Schiphol in its reservations computer. This gave travel agents worldwide access to Air Anglia's connecting flights to/from Amsterdam instantly via KLM's Global Distribution System (GDS), thereby enabling Air Anglia to improve its passenger loads on these services as well as helping KLM to boost its long-haul loads by delivering it additional transfer traffic from the UK regions at its Schiphol base.

In addition to these year-round scheduled services, Air Anglia also operated seasonal, summer only scheduled services from Norwich, Humberside and Aberdeen to Jersey. Air Anglia's seasonal Aberdeen-Jersey scheduled service was the longest non-stop scheduled operation utilising a turboprop in the British Isles at the time. (The F-27's scheduled flight time on that route was 2 hours and 45 minutes.)

The addition of further Fokker "Friendship" turboprops to the airline's fleet over the coming years led to the introduction of year-round scheduled services from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Humberside and Leeds/Bradford to Amsterdam as well as from Edinburgh via Leeds to Paris Orly and from Aberdeen to Stavanger and Bergen.

During the second half of the 1970s Air Anglia also added a pair of Piper PA-31 "Navajo Chieftain" executive aircraft to its fleet. One of these aircraft was used to launch a new, year round "cross-country" scheduled service linking the airline's Norwich base with Newquay in Southwest England via Birmingham in the English Midlands and Swansea in Wales.

In 1979 Air Anglia extended its domestic, year-round scheduled services to Stansted. 1979 also saw the introduction of the first jet aircraft into Air Anglia's fleet when the airline inaugurated daily, year-round scheduled jet operations between Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Amsterdam as well as between Edinburgh, Leeds and Paris with a pair of brand-new Fokker F-28 "Fellowship" 4000 series aircraft.

At the time of Air Anglia's merger with BIA, Air Wales and Air Westward to form Air UK in January 1980 its core fleet consisted of two Fokker F-28 "Fellowship" jets and ten Fokker F-27 "Friendship" turboprops. This core fleet was supplemented with additional turboprop capacity temporarily leased in from other operators such as British Midland during the annual summer peak travelling season as well as during periods when its own fleet was undergoing maintenance.

Air Anglia hoped that the merger with BIA as well as Air Wales and Air Westward to form Air UK would help it improve its financial performance by increasing the new airline combine's economies of scale, as a result of the acquisition of BIA's operations across the Western half of the British Isles to complement its own scheduled services linking important oil and gas industry centres covering the Eastern part of Britain. Air Anglia also hoped that this merger would give the new airline an important marketing advantage by expanding the network to cover all parts of the UK as well as by spreading its fixed costs over a greater level of activity. In addition, Air Anglia's amalgamation with a regional rival owned by British and Commonwealth presented an opportunity for Norwich Union to sell its shareholding in Air Anglia to British and Commonwealth.

Incidents and accidents

There were no recorded accidents or incidents during Air Anglia's ten year existence from 1970 until 1980.

Code data

• IATA Code: AQ
• Callsign:

References

• Flight International. Sutton, UK: Reed Business Information. ISSN 0015-3710. (World Airline Directory, 1971-1980 and 1982-1990)

External links

• contemporary timetable images

• Airliners.net - Air Anglia Douglas DC-3 "Dakota" at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, April 1972

• Airplane Pictures - Air Anglia Piper PA-31 "Navajo Chieftain" at Norwich Horsham St. Faith Airport, September 1976

• Airplane Pictures - Air Anglia F-27-200 at Edinburgh Turnhouse Airport, April 1979

• Airplane Pictures - Air Anglia F-28-4000 at Edinburgh Turnhouse Airport, June 1979