British Airways may be the world’s “favourite airline”. But it is certainly not the world’s biggest. That is the main reason why its merger talks with Qantas collapsed. Yes, the technical complications of an Anglo-antipodean tie-up would have been horrendous. But complexity alone did not break the deal. Rather it was an old-fashioned mergers and acquisitions struggle. The Australian airline sought majority ownership. It also wanted the executive board to sit in Sydney. BA said no. End of deal.

So it is back to the drawing board for global airline consolidation, for now. Qantas may pursue Asian deals from home. Meanwhile Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, has a wide array of options sketched out on his own office jotter pad. There is still the possibility of an Iberia deal, a combination with American Airlines some day, perhaps a white knight rescue of Aer Lingus (Walsh’s former posting) from Ryanair, even a strategic stake in Alitalia. Yet this hodgepodge of Venn diagrams is as much a vision of Mr Walsh’s overactive mind as of how busy the airline world has become.