Honestly, I really don't understand how anything gets done in the UK.
After spending six weeks training in the UK, what I came away from was this:
The Brits are charming enough people and quite polite (usually) but DEPRESSINGLY negative, and have a deathly fear of doing anything outside of the built in structure.
I'm saying this because I'm reading the post, and see a pattern of negativity on pprune.org Status quo for the industry is about to make an abrupt change, and the sooner we all adjust to this new reality the better off we'll all be.
If you ask me, and of course you didn't, Openskies could not have come at a better time for BA. This is a face of the new reality of a world where oil/fuel prices are not going down anytime soon, or at all. Travel in the future will be restricted mainly to those of means, or absolute necessity with a few who've saved for a nice vacation thrown in the mix.
Not much different let's say, then the days prior to US deregulation of the industry.
I think these horrible days of air travel will soon be coming to an end with airlines becoming much smaller and stealthier, less seats on an aircraft at a fare that is comparable to the service. Sadly I think some old industry names will go in the history books..namely on my side of the pond.
I think OS is a mark for the future, and BA was pretty damned smart to stake a claim this early in the game.
Of course only time will tell.