BDiNOU - some salient points, however
your fact number 2 - NATS should never have been put in the position of being so financially bereft in the first place before 9/11. The Labour (our skies are not for sale) governement put us through PPP then to cap it all saddled us with 100s of millions of pounds of debt.
Fact number 3 - Pensions and passing through of costs. We are a service industry, our pension contributions come from profits, we make profits by charging customers. It's semantics by the regulator - pension costs for any company are met by charging the customer.... whetther it's called pass through or not. Barron states that the airlines will not stand paying for our pensions... why not? We as passengers pay towards the pensions of the airline industry!!