fleet comprised 21 aircraft. Air UK employed 850 people at this time. Fleet in 1985 In March 1985 the Air UK fleet comprised 22 aircraft. Air UK employed 850 people at this time. Fleet in 1988 In March 1988 the Air UK fleet comprised 22 aircraft. Two British Aerospace BAe 146-200 were on order. Air UK employed 975 people at this time. Fleet in 1990 In March 1990 the Air UK fleet comprised 27 aircraft. Air UK employed 1,340 people at this time. Fleet in 1995 In March/April 1995 the Air UK fleet comprised 28 aircraft. Eight Fokker 50 were on order. Air UK employed 1,466 people at this time. Fleet in 1997 In March/April 1997 the Air UK fleet comprised 36 aircraft. Four Fokker 100 were on order. Air UK employed 2,000 people at this time. "Third Force" Air UK was the name of the new airline resulting from the merger of BIA and Air Anglia. (BIA had already absorbed Exeter-based Air Westward in March 1979). Cardiff-based Air Wales had become part of Air Anglia in June of that year.) It was incorporated on 1 January 1980. Operations commenced on 16 January 1980. At the time of its inception, Air UK was the largest regional airline in the UK and the country's third-largest scheduled carrier. It had a staff of 1,700, carried more than 1m, mainly scheduled, passengers annually and had a fleet of 40 aircraft, consisting of six jets (four ex-BIA BAC One-Eleven 400s and two ex-Air Anglia F-28 4000 series Fellowships) and 34 turboprops (including eighteen ex-BIA Handley Page Dart Heralds, ten ex-Air Anglia Fokker F-27 100/200 series Friendships and six Embraer 110 Bandeirantes originally part of the BIA, Air Wales and Air Westward fleets). Apart from the four One-Eleven 400s, which were predominantly operated on charter flights, all the other aircraft were part of Air UK's scheduled service fleet. For marketing purposes, there was no gap between the letters "U" and "K" in the "Air UK" logo in the newly merged entity's first livery, which was a stylised Union Flag. Former BIA managing director Peter Villa became Air UK's first MD as well. At the time of its creation, Air UK was sometimes referred to as the unofficial "Third Force" among the main contemporary scheduled airlines in the UK (British Caledonian (BCal) being the UK's official "Second Force" and British Airways (BA) the primary UK flag