Manchester Airport Group forms Gatwick bid team
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Posted on: August 27th, 2008 by Dave Smith
The Manchester Airport Group (MAG), which owns Manchester Airport as well as a number of smaller regional facilities, has formed a bid term and is looking at possible funding sources and investors in planning an approach to acquire Gatwick and Glasgow airports, should they become available for sale.
The group was quoted as saying that in “no way” was it prepared to pay the airport values that have been mentioned since the UK Competition Commission issued its damning report on the BAA’s operations last week, calling for it to sell off some of its airports in England and Scotland.
Jonathan Bailey, the external affairs director for MAG, confirmed that he was leading a team to evaluate a number of the BAA airports that were likely to become available.
He said further that the bid team was more interested in Glasgow and Gatwick than Stansted, as their operations were more similar in nature to Manchester’s.
Gatwick’s limitation is that building a new runway is not permitted until 2019, but that this is not necessarily a problem, he added. “We have just opened a new runway at Manchester and that took us almost 10 years.”
www.manchesterairport.co.uk