But surely you must realise if this pension deal goes through, NATS will likely be sold off to the preferred bidder
Exactly how do you come to that conclusion. The proposal changes a very expensive pension scheme into an expensive one. I'll accept that makes it more attractive but it's still a long way short of making any difference.
And exactly who is this preferred bidder and what are they going to buy ? We know from the experience of 2001 that NATS can't support any more borrowing so whoever buys will have to pay cash. Even if you value NATS at the bottom end of the scale that probably rules out most of the usual suspects.
Would they buy the Government's share ? Seems unlikely as they wouldn't get control of the company. Would they buy the Airline Group's share ? Possibly but all the member airlines would have to agree and it's widely believed that last time there was any interest at least one of the airlines was not prepared to sell.