LGWbidding
If just 2 airlines (along with some financial backer) were to bid for LGW wouldn't there be a risk of a conflict of interest occuring somewhere ?
If there are 10 significant sized airlines in an ownership consotrium, it becomes much harder for any single airline to ask for some sort of preferential terms. Yes, the CAA can put in all sorts of regulatory rules - but it can't police every internal meeting. Put in enough rules, and the whole organisation becomes overly bureaucratic and incapable of adapting to customer demand.
If you're part of LGW senior management and both (for example) VS and ZB were trying to get hold of the same resource - could you really put hand on heart and always act completely objectively ?