The UK is looking for a one year delay to the Open Skies deal, before new operators enter the LHR market. Can't think why any more time is necessary, but if it's just a year, I guess they'll agree to it, if the alternative is the UK vetoing the deal.
I would imagine a number of unpleasant expletives coming from bmi HQ, but again, they mightn't be affected that much, if they won't be able to get any new aircraft by October anyway.
With LHR moving to mixed mode operations around 2008-9, the US might accept this if a quid quo pro is US carriers being allocated a certain proportion of the new slots arising from this?
http://investing.reuters.co.uk/news/...N-UPDATE-3.XML