Its totally fair. In fact they should abolish this whole anti-trust immunity thing. The airline industry today is a fiasco and as an analyst with Goldman Sachs put it ," a text-book study in value destruction."
Airline bosses have been predicting that consolidation is the only viable solution. I'd respond to them, " try getting better not bigger."
LHR and a BA alliance is a unique case , London being such a big financial center- consequently a lot of business travellers. Companies like Virgin have stood their ground on basis of better service alone. Let BA show if it can really stand its own ground without any of this price-fixing, anti-competitive alliance stuff. They have already seen it in the domestic market with the new low cost carriers -especially Ryanair- whose case only goes to prove that passengers would have everything to lose with an alliance of any sort. If the airline is good enough and provides great service they wouldn't have to worry about weak load factors and passenger numbers.