What a surprise.....NOT!!!!
How much are you willing to bet that the government pushes whatever plan the airlines come up with, regardless if it will work or not to ensure they don't take any further flak over their complete incompentence.
Then in a couple of years time once NATS has been pillaged, the government will blame the airlines for mis-management, ala railtrack and setup a cosy little committee to investigate the running of NATS.
After all if the airlines can't get it right in their own business, what hope have we got with them trying to run NATS.