BusyB, I remember in the mid 1980s when we were invited to drinks with Sir Adrian Swire that he mused to a group of us, "You know, I think we may be out of the airline business by 2025".
Such visionary planning is what kept the Swires ahead of the rest, until the third generation after Sir John showed that they had no clue about visionary planning, and only understood the platitudes of their management studies at Fontainbleu.
Swires never really understood that you needed the absolute best of Chinese directors to handle the transition to the Asian century. They wouldn't pay for them, they did not trust those who were smarter than London, so they got the mercantilist mediocracy that we have seen over the last few years.
Old Sir John must be up to 10 RPM in his grave.