If you want to know how badly BA needs this merger, consider Air France/KLM/Alitalia and the Lufthansa Group (Swiss, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, bmi – and effective control of SAS and others through Star). Iberia could jump into either of those camps and BA would then be completely isolated and marginalised.
I personally have been told by very senior people at BA haw amazed they were at the success of AF/KL, having been very sceptical about how two such different corporate cultures could be brought together.
I just wonder whether a BA a couple of years down the line, with its cost base sorted and decent profits coming in, would not have been a rather more senior partner in the merged entity.