BAA loses Stansted appeal
The airport operator, which owns London's Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, as well as Southampton, Stansted, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports, has mounted a series of unsuccessful legal challenges against theCompetition Commission (CC) ruling in 2009 that BAA must sell Stansted in Essex and two of its other UK airports.
Since the CC decision, BAA has sold Gatwick Airport in West Sussex and, faced with having to dispose of either Edinburgh Airport or Glasgow Airport, it has opted to sell Edinburgh.
BAA said in a statement: "We are disappointed that the Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of the Competition Commission. We will now consider its judgment carefully and we intend to submit an appeal to the Supreme Court."
Commenting on the Court of Appeal's announcement that BAA should sell Stansted Airport, PwC's head of airports, Colin Smith, said: "The situation has been ongoing for three years and isn't entirely unexpected. Despite a decline in passenger traffic in recent months, we believe Stansted airport will remain an integral part of UK aviation infrastructure and is the principal source of vital airport capacity in the South East of England. We believe it will certainly be of interest to a wide range of potential investors."
