Quote: "I am starting to think that overall BA buying IB was not a very good idea, admiringly, they gained a lot of South American routes, but at the same time IB need to reorganise and restructure and Spain is not doing to well at the moment
Personally I feel if BA want to improve their South American network, they should have spent the money buying IB on buying further LHR slots
I have also felt in the past that LH or KLM where better merger partners in the past (the problem was airline alliances for a start)"
Technically BA didn't buy IB, it was a merger and both carriers are a part of IAG.
IIRC, the original plan was for BA and KL to merge. KL was not in alliance at the time, and had the merger gone ahead, KL would have almost certainly joined Oneworld. This didn't work out and AF merged with KL and the latter joined Skyteam.
That only left one large European carrier, IB. LH obviously wasn't up for merging with anyone, having already taken over several smaller European carriers: SN, OS, LX and BD.