BLIMEY! MOL starting a war against the BAA who have supported him and his airline!............................
BAA set to fight Ryanair with writ and fee rise
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent
BAA, the airport operator, will today intensify its long battle with Ryanair by doubling the low-cost airline’s landing charges and starting legal action over allegedly unpaid airport fees.
BAA will issue a High Court writ against Ryanair, accusing the airline of failing to pay £1 million of airport charges incurred at Stansted.
BAA has also cancelled the discount Ryanair receives on airport charges and from today will charge the airline almost double the previous rate per passenger. The increase would cost Ryanair more than £25 million a year.
Ryanair will retaliate with counter-proceedings against BAA and by announcing a big expansion at Luton, owned by BAA’s closest rival, TBI.
The relationship between Ryanair and BAA had already been soured by calls from Michael O’Leary, the airline’s chief executive, for BAA to be broken up. He has accused BAA of exploiting its stranglehold on London through its ownership of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.
Mr O’Leary has also claimed that BAA is “pissing away” billions of pounds of customers’ money on its expansion plans for Stansted. Ryanair says a new runway and terminal could be built there for as little as £200 million, a tenth of the £2 billion that BAA is planning to spend.
The latest dispute involves a bill for airport fees that BAA issued several months ago.
BAA said it would issue a writ today because Ryanair failed to meet a final deadline of 4pm yesterday for the bill to be settled. BAA says Ryanair has withheld the money because it claims BAA has been overcharging for use of fuel facilities provided at Stansted.
A BAA spokesman said that it had appealed to Mr O’Leary to step in and resolve the dispute, but its efforts had been rejected. The spokesman said: “It is unprecedented for us to take a customer to court in this way. We have a contract with Ryanair which says they have to pay these charges. They are not allowed to offset them against fuel charges. Our lawyers have also written to Ryanair saying the discount will no longer apply because they have broken the contract by not paying their bills.
“We have the power to impound their planes, but we have chosen not to do that because they are a valued customer.”
Ryanair had 12.5 million passengers at Stansted last year, 60 per cent of total traffic at the airport. The importance of Stansted to Ryanair was shown last year when it bought Buzz largely to secure the airline’s slots at the airport.
Ryanair is today expected to announce that it will nearly triple the aircraft it bases at Luton and establish nine new routes from there. At present it operates the equivalent of only 1.5 planes at Luton, but this will rise to four.
A Ryanair spokesman said: “We are issuing our own proceedings against BAA for over-charging on fuel levies at Stansted over a 12-year period.” The spokesman also claimed BAA could not legally cancel the discount Ryanair receives on airport charges.
EasyJet yesterday said that it is to add three aircraft to its 13 at Luton by next spring.
