In this part of the world, the New Zealand Government did take back Air NZ after some disasterous mistakes. If BA did make disasterous mistakes - the equivalent mistake to AirNZ's would be if BA bought a large US carrier, and then found that its new investment was costing its own core money. ( For the last few months of Ansett's existance, AirNZ was paying the Ansett payroll)
If BA management did disasterous things, could the rest of the British airline industry have covered what BA does if BA is not around? Could Virgin takeover 50 BA 744s and operate all the long range services?
The Canadian airline industry nearly had to ask itself the same question.