The BAA needs to be forced to divest both Gatwick and Stansted, as well as either Glasgow or Edinburgh. Only true private competition works in the interests of the customer, and a stitch-up leaving the rest of BAA as a quasi-monopoly by selling Gatwick to MAG is just not acceptable.

MAG is not a private sector company as it is owned by a consortium of councils. As such, it is not fit to purchase other airports outside its area (although it has done so in the case of HUY, EMA and BOH).
The public sector is an inappropriate owner of, well, virtually everything, as it has a tendency verging on certainty to c0ck things up.
Under the leadership of The Blessed Margaret we managed to abolish inefficient public sector entities. Don't lets regress to the chaos of the seventies.

I note the article does not mention that MAG are flogging off HUY.
MAG is owned by Local Authorities and has a Local Authority mindset.
God help Gatwick if they get it, that is all I can say! :sad:

What does the fact MAG are offloading a financial burden on the balance sheet have with them having a desire to invest in something more likely to afford a significantly better return?

Council owned/run or not, MAG remains a for-profit venture.

Stoney

Champions League Charter Flights
 

I'm just curious to know which Airline and aircraft type went tech and stopped 240 fans from getting to Moscow. Anyone know?

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
A Chelsea Supporter!

Moscow Charter should have been operated by Air Via

Aircraft was a B757 Operated by Gadair, Hydraulic leak and it was 224 fans.:ok:

anoraks.net is reporting that BA will LGW-JFK all to themselves as Delta are withdrawing from this September

Gatwick South
 

Been through Gatwick South three times in the past three weeks. Armed with online check-in printed boarding pass average time from train to Pret a Manger on the upstairs floor airside has been 10 minutes. OK, it's around 2pm, but that is so much better than a few months ago. The worst queues are now for buying water at WH Smiths.

And the opening up of the upstairs floor into what I guess was part of the landside Gatwick Village has had a huge impact on available space airside with more seats both inside and outside the new food outlets.

Well done Gatwick!

Dont forgot, Thomsonfly one of the airports biggest customers moved less than three months ago from south to north terminal.

The only thing that has changed, is the misery is now at North Terminal rather than South.

GATWICK - first visit by A380
 

Great excitement on Sunday when an evacuation of the Control Tower at Heathrow caused 15 arrivals, including SIA SQ318, to divert round the M25 to Gatwick. Thanks to some sterling work by BAA's Airfield Ops and Groundstar, the aircraft ( 9VSKC) was parked, refuelled and sent back to Heathrow three hours later.

All the diversions contributed to the setting of a new record for daily movements - 894.

PIA planning to link London with three other Pakistani cities flights will operate as Faislabad-Sialkot-Peshawar-London vice versa, two domestic stops seem odd though, A310 will be used, could end up operating from Gatwick.

Continental
 

Co has announced that is dropping all flights to Lgw at the end of October. All services to operate from Lhr. Not sure if Cle will operate at all.

True Blue

Any idea whether they will continue with their VS codeshare flights ?

I believe so. I think there may a press statement on their web site.True Blue

LGW will be sorely missed by us at CO. The dispatchers and ground staff have been nothing but a pleasure to work with. I guess we are adding an additional LHR flight to make up for the loss. which is not near enough. I'll be drinking a pint to all involved on my last trip there later on this month

Do Continental self handle at Gatwick? I know that they use KLM Ground Services at Heathrow so I guess there are going to be some job losses.

No SOE we use Servisair for ops and theres a few folks that work for us that are still here when I was hired 21 yrs ago. :(

I owe a lot to LGW as they brought me up into the wide world of working at airports...now moved on but have fond memories...

DC10 daily delays, 747's barely making it off the runway...ah the good ol days

some excel rescue flights
N720AX DC10 sat 0915
SX TIC 747 sat 1600

CS TMP L1011 sun 0700
SX TIC 747 sun 0315
SX TID 747 sun 1635
SX TIC 747 sun 2255

G-FBEC - Flybe E195 doing a rescue flight between LGW and Cagliari (and return)......I am pretty sure its on -EC. I don't think the plans have been scrapped and possibly going to be for a couple of weeks.

If it`s there for a while, could we start to see a Flybe base at LGW. Be about time as it`s the biggest catchment area in the country ????
( bar LHR, and thats just way too pricey!).

I am not being critical of your suggestion but why would Flybe want to?

They are profitable as a regional operation, and would instantly be up against stiff competition. Crewing would be more costly as well for a Gatwick operation.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it is a mantra often ignored to the cost of many airlines. Flybe are profitable in their niche and Gatwick would be a hefty gamble with that profitability.

Thats a very good question Aeromaniac, however as Whitehatter has said it would be costly for Flybe to set up a base as such. I believe operations at LGW may very well be increasing at some point as suggested in Mike Rutter ( :rolleyes: ) various interviews with media but I doubt very much they would make it a base.

In their website news about bank holiday bookings, 4 out of the top 10 routes were ex LGW. very good, but currently they can only go to where they have a base, EDI, INV etc, what about the rest of Europe???

I think there is too much competition for Flybe at LGW on European routes. Their expansion plans are really aimed at North East and Scotland, but not LGW. Also there are a lot of London passengers that commute down to Southampton and use Flybe services simply to avoid the chaos that can become LGW South terminal. I would like to see Flybe move over to the North but this has been rumoured before and I am still waiting :)

They currently have a summer Saturday LGW-Bergerac service and BE could fairly easily add a few non-base routes from Gatwick doing patterns such as JER-LGW-Bergerac or NCL-LGW-Poitiers

Gatwick up for sale - Sky news reports
 

Sky reports that BAA is to put Gatwick up for sale a month after the comp commission told it to slim down.

Branson mentioned as potential suitor.

iX

BAA put Gatwick up for sale.

Thank god. Just hope whoever buys it turns it into a airport and not carry on with the slum it is.:mad:

LGW Sale
 

Well I hope Ryanair & Easy Jet are now verry happy. But doesnt that Mean when It sold that they Become unregulated and then they can charge what they like, Of course If any Airline atempts to buy them Isnt there a conflicts of Inerest.Bad day for the aviation busines.:=:=:=:*

It does not necessarily mean that they will become unregulated - while that would be the optimal solution from an economic point of view, I do not believe that would be feasible for a number of years yet.

The sale of Gatwick is great news for the industry, as in the short term it will indeed permit development of the airport as a competitor to other airports, hopefully raising standards of service.

While Virgin ownership of Gatwick might be viewed to be negative for other carriers, it is not entirely uncommon for airlines to have significant ownership interests in, or close ties to airports - many in the Far East are an example.

They are unlikely to be permitted to charge differing access charges to different airlines, but they would be able to enhance their service standards to the detriment of others. However, with competition among airports, those airlines are free to move elsewhere - overall, I cannot see any particular negative impact of Virgin themselves owning the airport.

At least BAA won't be running security. Perhaps we'll be able to perform our duties whilst maintaining a little dignity with the new buyer?:)

I think MAG might have something to say about the situation before everyone assumes that Beardy will pick Gatwick up.

A list of potential buyers: From Gatwick airport: The potential buyers | Business | guardian.co.uk

Virgin Atlantic:

Virgin has already declared an interest in buying Gatwick as part of a consortium.

Global Infrastructure Partners: GIP owns a 50% stake in London's City airport,

Macquarie Group: Its private equity investment fund, Macquarie Airports Group, owns 50% of Bristol airport and 24.125% of Birmingham International airport.

Hochtief: Hochtief AirPort, Co
Owns stakes in six airports: Athens, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Budapest, Tirana and Sydney . HTA is one of the world's biggest private airport managers with a portfolio worth 1.3bn euros (£1bn) at the end of last year.

So will this allow Gatwick to have it's second runway then?

Since the agreement not to build one was between the BAA and West Sussex Council. Dunno how it stands legally, but look at all that empty space to the South of the existing runway, then tell me it hasn't been planned for years.

IMHO, probably good news for LGW not to be owned by the BAA. :ok:

Hochtief is a good match... Hamburg has turned into quite a nice airport, and from past experience, Düsseldorf is just as good. Hochtief has extensive construction experience, so can draw on its own other divisions to make extensive improvements on the airport.

Virgin has always pointed out that they want to buy Gatwick as part of a consortium, not alone.

S.

You are right - my understanding is that the agreement not to build the second runway would be null and void under any new owner.

I bid £622M. Looking for an investor to back me to the tune of £622M, PM me:ok:

Gatwick would remain regulated...it's its size, not its ownership, that's the key factor.

Ironic, isn't it, that after BAA played very foul to have Redhill kicked into touch in 2003 as a potential feeder for LGW, but also a potential monopoly-breaker, and the Department of Transport - Alistair Darling - bowed to BAA's demands to protect their monopoly, BAA's new Spanish owners are now exploiting that to maximise the asset realisation values, of which Gatwick is only the first to be realised for cash from the highest bidder, regardless of who that will be.

We need to ask ourselves why it's Gatwick that's being disposed of first. A sale of Stansted may provide better competition for Gatwick and thus reduce its value. But a sale of Gatwick will not affect Stansted's already poor open-market value.

A sale of Heathrow can safely be put off until last without reducing whatever value it has now. It was only ever an exercise in buying some badly managed assets, adding some superficial value, or simply letting the value increase in a growing market, and selling to maximise the gain as a short-term investment.

Would the present perceived slow-down in growth have anything to do with the timing? Of course it would; BAA's owners could and would have ignored the Competition Commission's "recommendations" if it suited them.

I give it 5-10 years before we see the Spaniards marching off into the sunset with their cash, having continued the DfT's work of destroying any hope London ever had of a viable, prosperous and coherent airport system.