It could be argued that at least six or seven of the slot pairs in question were gobbled up by BA and converted to long haul when they bought regional operators BRAL and Brymon. When they eventually tired of regional flying, they flogged it all off to Flybe. Great, job done, decks cleared and slots making shed loads of money. Only when they saw another opportunity and gobbled op slot heavy BMI did the authorities spot that the monopoly was becoming a little too obvious. When Flybe CEO Saad Hammad started moving into LHR, BA must have woken up and realised the possibility that he had a cunning plan and there was a crack developing in their aim of protecting empire LHR at all cost. Making money with Dashes into LHR would be difficult but what if Flybe developed more alliances with competitors? From then on, and realising that grandfather rights were imminent BA probably had it in for Flybe. Could it be that the CAA have never come across this complex scenario before and they are simply more scared of BA's massive legal guns than Flybe's?