Response to MV
Some of your points are spot on and there are far to many issues to respond to and do it justice.
Turboprops for many of the inter Britain routes were and are to slow in many cases and if operated by or for BA are to expensive. Give a company that is making a healthy profit like Cexpress to BA and watch them turn it into a loss maker.
Smaller twin jets CRJ and EMB145 once again are often in the wrong hands arec as expensive to operate as a B737 / A319 because the Tprops/CRJ & EMB's cannot offer full service cabins, any one who has ever flown on them will tell you that they are not comfortable and internal space is nil. My cabin preference is the EMB as the CRJ windows for anyone over 5' 6'' offer very little view.
Both a/c suffered start up problems and I believe for some time utilisation was not good. Both were developed from executive jet extensions and this formular does not always work, though CRJ enjoy sucess in the exec jet market.
Routes are often too long or too short and many times there are too may unsold seats or the flight is oversold, I appreciate that is a contradiction. Internal UK operations by BA or its franchises made seat prices often far to expensive and that may still be the case, made worst by the low cost operators who have cherry picked some of the best routes anyway.
Historically within the UK and near mainland Europe the public did not consider flying due to cost and very much the culture.
I wish Maersk the very best of luck but I fear that they will not be able to cut costs quick enough in what can only be the worst of all times at present. I believe that there is about 2-3 years to run on the BA franchaisse but BA have enough problems and many of Maersks' routes often carry passengers to mainland Europe for traveling to further destinations by other carriers so that is also a factor.
Finally as BA have found merely cutting seat prices without being able to cut operation costs will only fill the a/c up not the coffers. On a previous thread I posed the question that no-one answered what was Maersks 'ASK' (actual seat cost per kilometer) Easy is 4.5 pence and BA is 13.0p LGW and 15.0p LHR I am sure that Maersk cannot be much under 8.0 p.
I would hazard that this reponse might generate a few replies aiming some flak at my views. Rgds