RevMan,
I never said they were actually there.
The point I'm making is that if Lufthansa are so concerned about the possession of slots at LHR, their percentage of BMI gave them an awful lot of influence, albeit not a casting vote at the time of the BMed deal. I'm convinced that they would not have agreed to the sale of valuable slots at the home base of their largest competitor
to their largest competitor if they had any intention of operating from there themselves.
As someone else has written, slots
at the right time at LHR are a very valuable commodity. Those who have them won't want to get rid of them. BMI has 11% but very few suit sensible longhaul schedules. I doubt LH would want to do shorthaul in any quantity from LHR (perhaps a few extra services to connect at FRA, say) so the only companies to whom these slots have any value are those who have large numbers of them at LHR already and have the flexibility within their operation (ie. a large enough one) to move shorthaul and longhaul services around within their schedule. Needless to say, this narrows the choice down a bit. The only other operator who could perhaps have use of them is VS but unless LH buy them as well (who knows?), they aren't in a position to keep them (use them or lose them).
Like I say, just a few thoughts and whether I'm right or wrong, it'll be interesting to see how this plays. Watch this space.