maybe Vjay Mallaya will buy it?

BAA won't get rid of LHR, ever. Whether Ferrovial will get rid of BAA after relieving BAA of some of its airports is another matter altogether... but that's a thing to wonder about after the banking crisis is over.

:-)

S.

I just checked my bank account and I can't afford it. :{ I do get paid a week on Friday though so I'll let you know...

Personally I don't think Branson has any interest in buying a large stake in the airport - it's purely a publicity exercise. Although if some conglomerate said they'd put Virgin's name on it for a measley percentage I could be proved wrong.

Personally I can only see Ferrovial as a big loser here. Each individual airport is worth less when not part of a monopoly and the credit crunch just makes matters worse for them. They did not have the political nous to see that while BAA was "British" a monopoly was acceptable, but became unacceptable as soon as a foreign company took over.

Well, my crystal ball could see the likes of Emirates buying Gatwick up and building a London super-hub for themselves.

I expect they can afford to outbid anyone else!

Perhaps, it could also afford to seriously upgrade the infrastructure, to attract some major carriers back to LGW from LHR and get some income from them! :E

Vermin.. a slight off topic question here but for what reasons do you feel VA will be on the ropes in 6 months or so?

Actually i'm going to buy it.
Then sack all the security staff and employ humans.
Then make sure the airport has more than 1.5 ambulifts.....:ugh:

or maybe just have really pretty women in security, or...
boy this is going to be fun. :}

Bit of drift going on here chaps but back to the rumour, here's one for you.

News whispered in my shell intimates that any consortium will have a majority made up from the construction company Laing O'Rourke.

Taking over an operation the size of LGW with all the immediate compliance measures would need a steady hand at the helm.

A search of Mr Google would appear to add a little weight with the former managing director of LHR, one Mr Tony Douglas who left BAA to take over as the Chief Operating Officer of the construction giant in a prime seat, assisted by the recently departed Heathrow MD Mark Bullock who has only just joined Laing O'Rourke.

Now if Donna Boote, Mr Bullock’s significant other and a recent departee from the role of security manager at LHR were to be employed by the new operating company, well I never.

If it smells like smoke and looks like smoke - it might just be smoke !

I'm back off to Irish Paddy's betting site to have a few quid on this one.

You heard it on PPRuNe first :E

The Gatwick campaigners (NoGaR) have vowed to renew their efforts to stop any future plans for a second runway at Gatwick:

BBC NEWS | England | Sussex | Vow to fight extra Gatwick runway

Clearly they are aware that the deal between BAA and West Sussex County will be null and void once the airport is sold, which would leave the future owners open to pitch Gatwick as a viable alternative to Heathrow, which could lead to a second runway.

So the whole farce goes back to square one.

S.

If the Gatwick locals don't want a second runway (and the Heathrow locals don't want a third), then the train journey to BHX is only a little longer (less than 20 minutes from parts of central London) and likely to be further reduced over the next few months.

Would a bit of marketing from the West Midlands, to both passengers and airlines, depress the price that Ferrovial et al are expecting to get for Gatwick?

Yes let's all fly from Birmingham. Can't think why I never thought of that. Genius. I guess if you take the northernmost part of the M25 then it might be 20 minutes nearer to BHX than LGW, but that's quite seriously clutching at straws.

Fly Green I like your style!

Maybe subcontract security to Hooters?

Mexicana to launch lgw - Mexico City early jan 09. A little good news for lgw at last.

True Blue

Wait and see about MX.

Well, the flights are available on their web site for booking, are you suggesting that they might not operate as shown on the site?

True blue

QR moving from S terminal to N terminal this weekend!
 

Just read this news on LGW website and business traveller mag but so far nothing on QR website and no message sent to me yet(got a booking later this year)
Was this as sudden as it seems and is there anything behind it?

QR moving from S terminal to N terminal this weekend!
 

It was planned to happen, Continental are ceasing operations at LGW from today, therefore check-in and aircraft parking have become available from tomorrow.

New Gatwick Routes
 

Gatwick had lost quite a lot of routes recently with XL and Sterling both stopping. easyJet have so far only taken up Copenhagen, but today I saw this:

Cimber air has announced a new service to Billund

Anyone know what A/C this will be on ?

New Gatwick Routes
 

In amadeus, it shows operating with CRJ (CANADAIR REGINAL JET 200)

VICKERS VC10

Is easyjet going to move out of north terminal to south and consolidate their operation into one terminal !

Easyjet and Virgin to bid for Gatwick
 

according to the beeb Easy and Virgin are looking at making a joint bid for Gatwick.

LGWbidding
 

If just 2 airlines (along with some financial backer) were to bid for LGW wouldn't there be a risk of a conflict of interest occuring somewhere ?

If there are 10 significant sized airlines in an ownership consotrium, it becomes much harder for any single airline to ask for some sort of preferential terms. Yes, the CAA can put in all sorts of regulatory rules - but it can't police every internal meeting. Put in enough rules, and the whole organisation becomes overly bureaucratic and incapable of adapting to customer demand.

If you're part of LGW senior management and both (for example) VS and ZB were trying to get hold of the same resource - could you really put hand on heart and always act completely objectively ?

Are you saying that we already have impartial treatment throughout the BAA group? Just try saying that to the non BA passengers at LHR with the chaos they're going to have over the next 4 years.

Conflict of interest
 

Whether BAA treat BA differently or not is a debatable point, but because BA do not have a substantial equity ownership of BAA / Ferrovial, it makes it harder to claim conflict of interest as oppoosed to simply giving your biggest customer a better deal.

From what I can tell, most private companies in the world give their big-spending customers better terms. Where discretion permits, do Fraport really not sometimes try to make things slightly easier for LH, or AdP for AF ? I can't think of any long-haul airlines which don't have some sort of loyalty scheme.

If just a couple of airlines (who happen to be amongst the bigger customers) have a significant equity stake as well - then in my opinion the likes of Monarch, Thomson and others would be justified in publicly complaining about conflict of interest rather than the milder "they take more interest in their biggest spending customers"

A number of UK airlines already are large investors in NATS, but I don't see any favouratism. UK ATC is as even handed to everyone as always - unlike some others I could mention.

NATS
 

7 airlines jointly hold 42% of the shares in NATS - thus diluting the influence of any single airline. Further, staff hold 5% and the Govt holds 49% plus a golden share - thus largely overriding the commercial interests of any single airline.

This is not to say there is absolutely zero conflict of interest for NATS senior management - but it appears to be quite small.

In comparison, Easy+Virgin being principal members of a consortium bidding to own an airport might raise significantly more conflict of interest

Who owns the other 4% less 1 share?

I'm not sure if this has been thought through clearly.

Gatwick would be owned by a separate company which would have to suitably distanced from both Easy & Virgin Management and Directors to satisfy competition rules.
This isn't a case of both airlines taking an equity stake in another airline, they're proposing taking on a major UK business with many existing customers and different types of businesses on ONE site who aren't going tolerate any crap.

If they do make a successful bid, to run Gatwick properly on a day to day basis they're going to have to appoint much stronger and more astute management and directors than currently exist at either airline.

Ezy + Vs
 

niknak - I agree that the company running LGW will have to be on an arm's length basis from EZY / VS. However, I still suspect that there will be a perception of conflict of interest.

Does anyone know how Plymouth separates airport operations from those of AirSouthWest, given that Sutton Harbour essentially runs both companies ? I'm guessing this may not be the best example as no other scheduled airlines currently fly there.

wakeup - BAA own the other 4% of the shares in NATS. The golden share exists so that the Govt essentially have a veto on anything they consider strategic

Given the actions of Stelios with the board of Easyjet do you think the city is more likely or less likely to want to fund a bid by him.

Gut instinct is it will be less likely as irrespective of what he has done before the bullying of a board by its biggest shareholder will inspire no confidence from the fund managers.

Their viewpoint is if he treats Senior Board like this will our £X million stake get treated the same way.

It's being reported that NWA are pulling Detriot from January. Anyone confirm?

NW will drop DTW (5th Jan) and SEA (8th Jan).

Both Flybe and Aer Lingus have filed slot requests with the German slot-coordinator for flights from DUS to LGW with the E195 and the A320 respectively. EI is only a once-daily midday service, so LGW might be just a dummy for something else (BFS?). Because of the scarcity of slots at DUS, none of the requests has been met so far.

Would be nice to get back a DUS route from LGW. The route has a long tradition and was served by BCal Commuter, Air Europe, Cityflyer etc. A while ago there were flights from DUS/MGL to LHR, LCY, STN, LGW and LTN by seven airlines, now we are down to four airlines, no service to LTN and LGW and STN facing a downgrade to the 78-seat DHC8-Q400 in 2009.

How is it downgrade?? More like an upgrade!! The Q400 is far more state of the art than the old 737's BA have. It is here to stay & seems to be making money!!

Capacity-wise.

I was talking about the overall LON-DUS market, and not only have some routes disappeared, but also on others capacity has been reduced. LHR by BA used to be 757/767 and is now mostly Airbus, STN used to be 100 or 150 seater with Air Berlin and will now be reduced to a 78 seater. Plus the loss of LGW-DUS, LTN-MGL and LCY-MGL (and, if you want so, due to the proximity of the two, LHR-CGN by BA, LTN-CGN by X3, LGW-CGN by 4U/BA).

Gatwick Swimfest
 

I hear (via airline staff) that in the recent wet weather about 50 cars may be written off after the staff car park flooded.

Apparently the affected area is know by BAA to have a history of flooding and there used to be signs around the area warning of this that have now been removed.

BAA are denying all responsibility or liability and apparently are trying to blame the airlines for not warning staff of the no liability clause.

Notwithstanding the fact that BAA will not let staff park elsewhere!

Luckily i escaped that day by parking further down closer to the entrance. I normally park in the flooded areas....

If I was one of those few with written off cars i'd be getting my insurance company onto the BAA. They're liable and there's definitely no signage to warn of flood risks.

I was also never made aware that area was a flood risk when i collected my car park pass from the BAA offices.

To say its the airlines fault is a joke!

Who runs the car park? BAA
So therefore who's responsibility is it to tell people about possible risks? Not the airlines is it...
:rolleyes:

Which car park ?