Branson interested in Gatwick
02.09.08
Sir Richard Branson has said that his Virgin Group is planning to bid for Gatwick Airport, in a deal that could cost £2 - £3bn, The Daily Telegraph reports. He told the newspaper: ‘We are open to being courted by anyone who is interested in bidding,' and has already held talks with several potential bidding partners, thought to include funds backed by the Dubai royal family.
His interest in a possible offer for Gatwick, Britain's second-biggest airport, which handles about 34m passengers a year, adds Sir Richard's name to a long list of prospective bidders. The Virgin founder's plans are also at an early stage because Gatwick is not yet formally for sale and a final report by the Competition Commission on Britain's airports industry is not expected to be published until February or March next year. It may not result in an offer - Sir Richard is the master of free publicity.
Sir Richard declined to say how Virgin's involvement in a bid would be funded. However, Virgin's close links to Dubai International Capital suggest at least part of the financing may come from the Middle East. That possibility may be strengthened by the fact that Paul Griffiths, who now runs Dubai Airports, ran Gatwick while a senior executive at BAA, and has also served as commercial director of Virgin Atlantic, the newspaper adds.
Sir Richard said Virgin Atlantic's experience as a partner in National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the public private partnership, had led him to believe that consortium ownership of a major airport such as Gatwick could be successful. He told the Telegraph: 'It now looks as though they are going to break up BAA, and so they should.'
'For the last few years they have been an absolute embarrassment. We have switched terminals at JFK [in New York] four times - the terminals are free to compete with each other to offer airlines better service and it helps keep down the price of tickets across the Atlantic. It demonstrates that competition works.'
‘The consortium approach to NATS has worked well for all parties and with our reputation for customer service, we would be very interested in Gatwick and using our expertise to run the airport as it should be run.’
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