There is absolutely zero chance of the Liverpool Street-Stansted line being improved substantially in the next 20 years or so. It doesn't feature on any future plans that I have seen, and it is a massive infrastructure project to increase the capacity of a rail line running through an inner city area serving an airport suffering a reduced passenger throughput.
FRatSTN - you seem to be expecting that a new owner of STN will be able to
reduce fees whereas all indications are that it will need to
raise them, as I argue above.
BAA are projecting future profit per passenger 60% higher than it is now - that looks like a price increase. So does the fact that the new owner will be servicing £1bn debt (= more than it does now) from operations.
Racedo is right in thinking that money is available for
good investments with good long term returns.
I'm not sure how good an investment Stansted is. The last 4 years have demonstrated that passengers and airlines prefer Gatwick and Luton (mainly for their locations), and Stansted suffers from 70% of its business being with Ryanair - an aggressive and formidable competitor and ruthlessly awkward customer!