BAA break-up would revive Gatwick runway plan
23.04.08
The Competition Commission is preparing to force BAA to sell three airports including Gatwick, where a new owner would be likely to revive plans for a second runway, the Times reports.
The commission indicated yesterday that BAA’s airport ownership in London and Scotland is failing to provide passengers with a good service. It will publish recommendations in August that could include the requirement for BAA to sell either Gatwick or Stansted, or possibly both, either Glasgow or Edinburgh and Southampton Airport.
The commission said that splitting up ownership of the three main London airports would result in greater efforts to create extra capacity and relieve overcrowding. ‘Separate ownership would itself create a greater incentive to expand capacity.’ The Times says that BAA is 'widely expected to act before the commission forces its hand, possibly by selling Gatwick within months'.
A 'commission source' told the newspaper: ‘It is very odd that BAA has belatedly supported expansion of Heathrow and Stansted but not Gatwick. The first thing a new owner of Gatwick would do is look at options for expansion, including a new runway.’
BAA signed a legal agreement in 1979 with West Sussex County Council in which it agreed not to start building a new runway until 2019. But this could be overturned by Parliament. In 2003 the Department for Transport published possible locations for a new Gatwick runway, to the south of the existing one. The new runway would almost double the number of flights to 486,000 a year, 10,000 more than at Heathrow last year.
Brendon Sewill, chairman of the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, told the Times: ‘It is alarming to find the prospect of a second runway being revived.’
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