Crab
To be fair, it wasn't all about price and a great deal hinged on demonstrating to the DfT that all the promises could be delivered on and that suitable contingency plans were in place to cover all sorts of eventualities.
Variable load
There are many qualities that may lead to an operator being respected as "leading", however I don't think being cheapest would be one of them - which is almost certainly why they were selected
If you were faced with 2 building quotes (ignoring Bond only because they didn't bid on lot 3), both for work on your house, i.e. the same work. Purporting to deliver the same standard at completion (give or take an extra light here for an extra plug there). Both with proven success in the past, why, oh why would you choose the one that freely admits that the 20% extra it was going to charge was just a boardroom policy to keep profits up. Why are you so bent on cheap equaling poor value?
I bet you never go to Tesco/asda/morrisons (delete as appropriate) for your petrol!!