Quote: "but France has had considerable political devolvement, so is not as centralised as UK and now more like Germany"
Not so, France is far more centralised than you imply. It has a series of weak regional councils that deal mostly with transport (like PTEs in the UK) and economic development (like the "regional chambers" under Labour and now scrapped).
French regional councils are nothing like German lander (states), which are perhaps closer to the devolved executives in parts of the UK.
Apart from that, local government power rests with county councils (conseils generals) in each county (departement), and similar to UK county councils before the centralisation of the 1980s onwards.
"Quote: BA aren't bothered, BHX and immediate catchment area is Europe's 10th largest conurbation.... location to LHR irrelevent as per LH ops previously mentioned i.e DUS is near FRA. MAN big but no BA....etc."
Not convinced it's a case of BA not being "bothered". The absence of a BA network at BHX and MAN, or GLA for that matter, is probably more to do with the fact that they can no longer make money from non-LHR bases.
As a private company this has to be an important consideration, it's a long time since they were a government department/public corporation.
Last edited by Fairdealfrank; 22nd Jun 2012 at 00:46.