Every BAA airport is under "threat" and quite right too.
The only difference is that LHR,LGW and STN will go for mega money, the remainder will be sold for the market price or, more realistically, a lot less.
What it means is that the likes of O'Leary and similar oiks who are all gob and no action, may just be able to make a bid in conjunction with others to buy Southampton or one of the Scottish Airports, it's people with real money and knowledge of what it takes to run an airport who will scoop them up north and south of the border.
I would like to see Glasgow, Edinburgh or both get new ownership, I would be even in favour of a merged Central Scotland airport to tap into routes not already served. Also I would like to see if it would make a cost difference to the average pax, who pays a lot more to fly to/from Glasgow than say Manchester, higher landing fees and airport facilities costs usually the excuse.
It has a bit more substance than just a rumour. The Competition Commission report read as though it was saying BAA would be forced to get rid of one airport in the South-East of England and one in Scotland. I doubt Aberdeen or Southampton would be enough to satisfy them, so that means one of Glasgow or Edinburgh and one of the London area airports (and I think we can be pretty certain that they'll do all they can to hang on to Heathrow).
Which London area airport could be interesting. If Heathrow and Stansted get new runways, Gatwick wouldn't be that much lost capacity to BAA, but if Stansted were the one to be sold, Heathrow, Gatwick and Southampton would still dominate the area south and west of London.
Quite a naive retort Gerry Alba, you better hope the new incumbents provide similar operational practices and rates or you might just start giving a toss!!!!
It seems more than fair to slate Groupe Ferrovial / BAA with regard to their lack of skill in airport management. It hurts to defend them but much of this chaos is due to the the UK governments' total lack of transport policy for about the last 50 years. Futhermore perhaps someone can tell me of a UK / EU / USA airport group or sole airport that is run well in particular when they are the size of LHR. I have been lucky or not to have spent much of my last 30 years travelling all over as a punter / performing airport safety / security audits and with the exception of a few far flung places with a couple of services a day have yet to be impressed by any of the larger airports or their managements. So who will purchase what can only be described as the rump of the BAA airports and make them work and promote new airline business.
The common missconception here is that prices @ airports will be pushed down by competiton. At present there are few if any of the larger UK airports claimimg to make any sizeable profits. This is reflected in the lack of investment apparent at all / most UK airports. At the outset there might be some introductry offers but prices will stabilise to the across the board, there are a limited number of airports that offer exactly the same services basically, with a foresight of exactly what business is out there. For the present there are few if any new airlines, likewise few if any new routes so whom ever gets EDI or GLA I doubt you would see any changes for a number of years and charges would remain the same. The main losers would be BAA employees who would see their wages diminish rapidly.
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