Stansted Sale Halted On Technicality

In March the UK Competition Authority ruled that the UK major airports authority should divest itself of two of its three London Area airports.

As a result Gatwick has been sold and Stansted has become the battle ground for BAA vs the authorities.

The technicality is that one of the members of the investigation team was also an advisor to a group of pension funds who owned a chunk of Manchester Airport one of the bidders in the Gatwick sale. As a result of this "bias" the divestiture process has been halted.

For a full report on the Tribunal's assessment and ruling click this link.

Clearly this has disappointed at least one of Stansted's tenants. Its largest is Ryanair whose CEO was quick to blast the decision.

So this is another story that will play and play

Cheers

Me Thinks He Doth Complain Too Much - MOL.

OK so MOL is taking his battle to the streets again. And we all know that the tax issue is a burning one - so far the acceptance level makes most airlines look like lambs.

That said however RyanAir has again threatened to reduce the fleet at STN from 40 aircraft to 24. (One down from last year's winter of 25).

So the winter slow down seems to have worked because apart from the fuel hedging FR did just fine thank you.

Does he protest too loudly?

You be the judge

Cheers

BAA must sell 3 airports Southampton however is not amongst them

BAA took another blow with the UK’s competition authority forcing them to add Stansted to their divestiture plans. This marks another blow for the Spanish owners Ferrovial. "Having provisionally identified competition problems at each of BAA's seven airports, we are proposing remedies which address them directly and comprehensively through a combination of divestment and other measures to improve investment and levels of service,” Christopher Clarke, Chairman Competition Commission’s BAA Airports Inquiry, 17-Dec-08.

One unhappy camper with this is Flybe who wanted to see the divestiture of Southampton so they could potentially acquire the facility and build it up servicing markets south of London.

This is going to be an interesting story worth watching.

Cheers

So why did it take 5 Hours to remove the Protesters?

On December 8th, at 3AM about 50+ protesters from the Plane Stupid campaign www.planestupid.com gained access to Stansted Airport's one and only runway. However the airport and the police did not clear the Runway until 0800 and then did not re-open the Runway until 30 mins later.

Why did it take so long?

Well we are apparently not the only people wanting to know. the FR crew immediately took advantage of the situation and blamed BAA and demanded the Break up of BAA. All on the same day that (again) MOL decided to say he would leave when 3 conditions were met:

BAA was broken up
Irish Airports were reformed
Aer Lingus and Ryanair were one.

Dream on chaps!

Cheers