Air Anglia was a wholly privately owned, independent British regional airline formed at Norwich Airport in 1970. Created as a result of a merger of three smaller operators, the new entity became an important regional scheduled carrier 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 operating and engineering base at the recently established airport at Norwich in East Anglia. At the time of formation Norwich Union became its controlling shareholder. Air Anglia established itself as an important regional scheduled operator, as well as one of the main fixed wing operators supporting the British oil and gas industry in the North Sea 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. Commercial developments Air Anglia commenced operations with a small fleet of Douglas DC-3 "Dakota" piston-engined airliners (see heading image) 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 Airport. In 1971 it started internal services from Norwich to Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester, Edinburgh and Aberdeen; and an international service to Dublin. 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 the company's 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 been operating 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