The newspaper is just reporting it how it is. A plane flies empty just to maintain a slot. It's a waste.

It's bad PR (yet again) on the part of BA/BMed that they didn't deflect criticism onto BAA for the slot maintenance policy. At the very least they could have said it's a training flight and they rotate pilots to give them additionaly safety training. I mean these days any use of the word safety and you are exempt from criticism.