There are portions of management who are focused on investments and alliances and those focused on operations. Both are essential to developing the business, and to suggest that one group should not be investing in the future of the business while the other are messing up T5 is hardly relevant or useful.
As to why BA did not buy L'Avion earlier, or initiate the setup with the former BA management, there are several valid reasons:
- PrivatAir was the only proven business class transatlantic operation (subbing for Lufthansa and KLM)
- 757s were highly utilised at the time and hard to source from the BA operation or elsewhere
- Management was embroiled in the Iberia LBO
- The OpenSkies business plan had yet to be conceived
- OpenSkies itself had not been negotiated, let alone finalised, introducing the complication of G-reg operations from France to the US
Frankly the world has changed a great deal in 2 years. It is disingenious to suggest that BA should have bought L'Avion at that stage - no other commentators suggested they should have done so either at the time or until they did so yesterday.