BAA ordered to sell Stansted and a Scottish airport
31.03.11
BAA, said yesterday that the Competition Commission has provisionally concluded that it should still required to sell Stansted Airport and Edinburgh or Glasgow Airport. The Commission said that the sale of the airports is fully justified and that passengers and airlines would still benefit from greater competition with the airports under separate ownership, despite the current Government's decision to rule out new runways at any of the South East airports.
BAA has mounted a string of legal challenges to try to avoid the sales ever since the Commission initially ruled in 2009 that the operator must sell three of its seven UK airports. Last month, the Supreme Court ruled against BAA in its latest bid to stop the sell-offs. It has already sold Gatwick Airport.
The Commission's Chairman and Chairman of the BAA Remedies Implementation Group, Peter Freeman said, ‘‘We remain convinced that the original decision to require BAA to divest three airports is the right one for passengers and airlines. We found that, if anything, since the report there now appears to be greater capacity available, which will increase the potential for competition at the London airports.'
'However, we will continue to allow the airports to be sold in sequence with a small overlap between the two sales periods with Stansted to be sold first as it serves the larger number of passengers who will benefit.’
BAA said it would ‘carefully consider’ the Commission's provisional decision before deciding how to proceed and restated its belief that there had been a ‘material change in circumstances’ since the initial 2009 ruling. The Commission will publish its final verdict in May or June.
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