If airlines are nationalised or put on government support for a while, I can't see stratospheric salaries and bonuses being paid to directors. Previously the main interests were shareholder return and dividends, short term thinking regarding cost cutting in order to get a bonus rather than the long term good of the company. Strip out value by selling off core assets, make the numbers look good and you'd be long gone by the time the chickens came home to roost.
Privatisation under Mrs Thatcher was a good thing, inefficient state run companies were transformed, workers could own a piece of their employer and the general public got to participate in an area previously dominated by the financial elite. Now we have a new generation of robber barons pulling the financial strings, quite happy to take all the profits when it pays off but expecting a state bail out when they come short.