UA/BMI Approval by the UK
What you have to bear in mind is that the politician who runs the UK government department dealing with transport matters is a certain Mr Stephen Byers. Never heard of him?, lucky you!.
First of all a quick rundown on Mr Byers. He is of course eminently well qualified for his job dealing with public transport as he is unable to drive a car. He is an ex-college lecturer turned politician. With any luck he will soon be an ex-politician as well! His main claim to fame in the UK was to have a personal advisor (Ms Jo Moore) who sent an e-mail to the Transport Dept. on 9/11 suggesting "That this was a good day to bury bad news", and bad news is what Mr Byers department has plenty of! Ms Moore was eventually fired, unfortunately her boss held on to his job because of his close relationship with PM (Saint) Tony Blair. On the other hand maybe Tony can recognise an good potential scapegoat when he sees one.
However, as well as open skies Mr Byers has on his plate:
a. A bankrupt (bankrupted by him) railway system.
b. A railway drivers' union which seems intent on industrial action and inconveniencing as many members of the traveling public as possible.
c. A national road system fast approaching gridlock with problems that can only be solved by very unpopular decisions.
d. An Air Traffic Control system which has major problems with equipment, morale and a lack of investment. The ATC system is part privately owned by a group of UK airlines, but they cannot afford to invest and the only other shareholder is the governmnent who doesn't want to invest.
e. The pressing problem of finding a place to build another runway in SE England.
f. Terminal 5 at LHR. I bring this one in just to mention that the French have built 2 new runways at CDG in less time that we have been talking about T5.
g. The London Tube system, not really Mr Byers responsibility, but he'll have to take the rap for it anyway!
etc......etc.....etc.....
z. I've just remembered! Open Skies!!
So you see Mr Byers is a busy man (busy trying to save his political skin) and the chance of his being willing to devote any significant time to Open Skies is slim. He has many more higher profile disasters to worry about! So. I don't think it likely that we will see much progress on this one, worse luck.
RAGBAG