Interesting that they want something in the Southern Hemishere...

I would suggest that they have a much closer look at South Africa's Comair?
1. BA franchise
2. Consistently profitable for I think 20 years.
3. Has its own LCC.

Although I am South African, I do not know how SA laws/International Aviation Laws & treaties would apply if they tried to expand Comair to a major airline...

Imagine BA direct from Johannesburg to Paris, New York, Sydney,Hong Kong. Beat SAA at their own game. As SAA is such a poorly managed parastatal, surely they could do so much more with less!

Of course, they could have also bought in Qantas, and used QR instead of EK!