Stansted Airport Up for Sale

The owners of Stansted Airport, BAA, have announced they are selling off the Essex air hub.

BAA, a Spanish company, recently lost an appeal to the High Court to keep control of Stansted and have said they are not going to appeal again. The announcement that came today by the company marks the end of a three year legal battle that BAA has taken up to retain ownership of the airport.

The British competition watchdog, the Competition Commission (CC), launched an inquiry in 2009 into BAA's UK airport ownership, after an investigation into the company's monopolistic ownership of airports was suggested by the Office of Fair Trading in 2007.

Stansted Airport Sale

Consequently, BAA was ordered to sell both of its London area airports, Gatwick and Stansted, but has managed to hold onto ownership of Heathrow. In addition, the company also had to sell one of its Scottish-based hubs, either Glasgow or Edinburgh.

The company sold Gatwick in December 2009 to the US investment fund, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) and Edinburgh airport was sold last year to the same body, GIP.

BAA fought for three years to hold onto Stansted, arguing that the airport serves a completely different market from that of Gatwick and Heathrow and therefore, the company is not breaking any competition rules.

After the High Court refused the latest appeal by the company, BAA at first said it would take the case to the Supreme Court but today they signalled the end of their fight to hold onto the airport.

BAA used to own seven of the airports in the UK but after the selling of Stansted, the company will only own four: Southampton, Heathrow, Aberdeen and Glasgow.

Images © BAA Airports Limited www.baa.com/photolibrary