PBL,
Point of information.........In the 19th century, there were several railways running profitably - Great Northern, North Western, Great Western, Midland to name but a few. They also tended to be very paternal and very anti-union. Railway profits got killed by the government reneging on paying them after WW1 for the traffics they carried during the war - as happened again after WW2. The Great Northern relied on customer comfort to attract custom, while the Midland did the same by abolishing second class and increasing 3rd class comfort. So we did have companies that could do it. But they promoted management from inside the company, not because someone had an MBA (Much Bigger A*****e) or whatever. It also meant that management knew about how railways ran. Now there is, I feel, a degree of evidence to lead one to question if the majority of BA management know how an airline needs to run to be succesful.......