From various comments by various folks, I'll use this one:
Surely it would be far better if BA or even VS get the slots and expand long haul, rather than a non UK airline.
Before we even consider BA and VS, remember that the slots can be acquired on the grey market by anyone with the route licences and cash. Whether it might be 'better' for the slots to go to one carrier or another (UK or not) is irrelevant as there is no longer a central control over them. Now, to the main point.
- BA are not in buying mode.
- BA are selling (have sold) their domestic network.
- BA could not buy it if they wanted as the Monopolies folks would be crawling all over them. Which is why, in the past, they have just bought up small fry Like Brymon and Manx Air to get their LHR slots and then dumped the routes to LGW and then, eventually, the whole carrier.
- VS have tried in the past to buy SMB's share of BMI - SMB rejected them each and every time.
- A VS + BMI strategic partnership makes sense to everyone except SMB who rejects it every time.
- VS have now done other things and concentrated on their long haul product from the UK. Realising that the UK market was now rapidly maturing and the window was closing, the Virgin Group started domestic carriers in Europe, Africa, OZ and USA. Had they started in the UK, they would have had to do so from scratch and that would have been a waste of money. SMB/BD could have linked to make a UK/Euro/Global carrier and he decided not to.
Which is why I said - the only likely purchaser of SMB's shares are LH. I might be wrong as I have only been reading about BD/VS/BA for 20 years, during which time SMB has danced around the garden and ALWAYS rejected ANY British purchaser. He then failed to achieve his long haul objectives.