I cant imagine that BA would sell BE 15% for as little as 50M, if I remember correctly as part of the BAconnect deal BA made a significant investment towards fleet etc.
Not sure of the specifics but even though BAconnect were losing money surely BA expected to make a Net return on the whole deal.
No doubt BA in these difficult times will want to offload non core assets to release cash? And as regards Emirates, judging by the state of the economy I am sure they are having their own challenges so might not be as easy as coming in and buying up small commuter airlines.
It fascinates me or maybe i am missing something but do most airlines avoid competing with BE.
Ryanair seem to avoid them like the plague.
Baby dont have an nice experience in competing markets.
Possibly the combination of smaller aircraft with low fuel burn on high frequency routes make the challenge great to airlines who would need to compete with bigger aircraft. Take a market like Belfast/Glasgow. Not necessarily a perfect example but Ryanair flying to PIK and BE to GLA but BE numbers were not effected.? Ryanair did so poorly on loads on twice daily.
On the other hand when Flybe come up against Air South west a small commuter airline with reasonably similar equipment they dont fare as well??
All Comments welcome.....
EI-BUD