BAA expects Competition Commission to recommend breakup

Most airline industry observers expect that the Competition Commission will recommend the breakup of the British Airports Authority (BAA) when they issue their findings this week.

This is also in line with comments made by the airports operator chairman, who is predicting that BAA may be forced into selling one or possibly more of its seven airports in the UK.

In comments to the BBC, Sir Nigel Rudd revealed that the owner of BAA, Ferrovial, has already received expressions of interest from potential buyers for Stansted and Gatwick.

He asserted, however, that such sales would not constitute a “disaster” for the airports operator.

The chairman continued by saying that current speculation that competition among UK airports would improve from the break up of BAA has no basis in fact.

He said by way of explanation: “Heathrow does not compete with Gatwick and does not compete with Stansted or Luton or Manchester.

“It competes with Charles de Gaulle [in Paris], Dubai now and [Amsterdam's] Schiphol, because these are big international hub airports so the ownership of the airports has nothing to do with competition.”

BAA is the owner and operator of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports in Scotland and also Gatwick, Heathrow, Southampton and Stansted in south-east England.

www.baa.com