Or perhaps another way of looking at franchises is that they allow BA management to avoid the difficult issues of cost control. Without franchises BA would only be able to mintain a presence in the regions if it addressed its cost base. If BA did this to sufficient extent it would soon be an extremely successful company and those shares I paid a fortune for would at last be worth something again!!
Indeed the continued expansion of the franchise network can only be bad for the mainline operation, which while in such deep denial over the cause of its problems, can only whither on the vine in the coming years unless it addresses those costs...