Matilda has waltzed off in search of some Asian sensation, leaving Willie Walsh, the British Airways chief, looking downcast on the dancefloor.

What is BA to do without Qantas? Is it more talks with Iberia, or a resumption of the endless legal wrangle over anti-trust clearance for an American affair?

Rumour has it that the BA board left a message with Mr Walsh: do a deal, any deal. BA’s failure to find a partner is becoming embarrassing. For years, the British carrier said it wanted to be at the heart of airline consolidation. There were three attempts to get hitched with KLM but BA gave up in 2000, complaining that it couldn’t agree a merger structure with the Dutch.

Four years later, Air France did the job and in the meantime Lufthansa has gobbled up every spare carrier in the room. Softly, softly, Lufthansa is building a dominant market position in the heart of Europe. It has won Swiss and over the past year has announced plans to get control of British Midland, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines.

Of course, BA in the past talked to Swiss and it talked to Alitalia (Air France looks like it might do a deal with a resurrected version of the Italian carrier) but nothing came of it.

Willie’s loyal mates are quick to point out that it was Qantas that first made eyes at BA, not the other way round. But it seems that Alan Joyce, the new Qantas chief, is less enamoured with BA than his predecessor Geoff Dixon, who started the talks in August. And then there is small matter of BA’s £1.7 billion pension fund deficit, which is a turn-off for any suitor.

BA was yesterday blaming Australian nationalism for the collapse of the talks. The companies were orginally talking about a 50-50 deal but the leaking of the discussions provoked a media and political outcry at the idea that Australia might lose majority control of its national flag carrier.

Qantas then started demanding a majority stake and a headquarters in Sydney. Of course, some bright spark may have leaked the talks to put pressure on BA to compromise rather than face being jilted again. But BA braced itself for the inevitable snickering and said no.

The truth is that BA stood to gain much more from this deal than Qantas, notably access to Asia. If there is to be any traffic growth over the next five years, it will be there, not America.

The end of the Qantas talks makes it more likely that BA will now do a deal with Iberia, which would offer more potential cost savings. But the talks have been grinding on for months. If the Spanish walk away Mr Walsh will be under intense pressure to find something else.

Aer Lingus is spoken for but what about Icelandair? It might be cheap.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive