I don't think such fantasy is really getting back to basics. Presumably these two airlines also engineered the demise of all those other pension funds just to scare us.
You also have a rather strange take on the PPP deal. The Airline Group didn't screw us over it was the Government that did that. The Airline Group were actually pretty reluctant partners. The deal done was driven by the Treasury's need to fill an £800 million hole in its accounts whilst avoiding anything that could possibly look like a privatisation.
Neither the Airline Group or any of the other bidders had £800 million to buy half of NATS and even if they had it was, and still is, a pretty lousy investment. Although NATS generates a fair amount of cash it doesn't actually make anywhere near the return you'd expect for that sum of money especially as it needed £1 Billion of investment over the next 15 years after years of neglect.
It is a standard city deal to borrow against the asset you are about to buy and then transfer that debt into the company once you've brought it. In essence it isn't much different to buying your house on a mortgage which is secured against the property. With the Government's encouragement a deal of that type was done and the Government rode of with £800 million. The Airline Group was left in control of a financially unstable company and NATS was left holding the debt.
You may think that the Airline Group got a good deal but actually they didn't. In their evidence to the National Audit Office during the review of the NATS re-financing both unsuccessful bidders said it was a poor deal that they wouldn't have been happy with and the truth of that was seen shortly after PPP when NATS was effectively bankrupt and several of the airlines wrote off their investment.