BAA plans to invest £8.1 billion
 

BAA says plans to invest £8.1 billion over 11 years at 3 London airports

BAA PLC, the international airport operator, said it plans to invest £8.1 billion over the next 11 years at its three London airports - Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

The investment for the 2002/3-2012/13 period will be in a variety of projects to meet the needs of passengers and airlines.

It will be be funded from internal resources and borrowing.

The plans comprise £6.6 billion for Heathrow to include Terminal 5 and improvements to the four existing terminals; £980 million for Gatwick to take the airport up to around 42 million passengers per annum with the existing two terminals and one runway; and £600 million for Stansted, assuming BAA obtains permission to grow capacity at that airport.

BAA's capital investment plan, normally announced annually, is designed to meet its forecasts of continuing traffic growth over the long term.

Passenger numbers for the next 11 years are forecast to grow at the three airports from 104.9 million in 2001/2 to 153 million in 2012/13, an increase of 45.8%. The forecast average annual increase is 3.5%.

"There is no doubt that, long term, demand will continue to be strong and we are confident that traffic will double over the next 20 years," said BAA chief executive Mike Hodgkinson.

BAA will consult with its airline partners and other interested parties on the investment programme.

Meanwhile, BAA is today opening a £60 million extension of the terminal at Stansted.

At 9.00 am shares in BAA were up 2-1/2 pence at 643.

Source
Airline Industry News

Does this perhaps also mean that the UK, BAA, BA and others also realize that the day of US/UK openskies will come, albeit later rather than sooner?

If only they would use some of that to hire more staff to operate the x-ray channels that sit idle at peak times.

Last night I went through LGW North and there were long queues for three scanners. Eventually a fourth opened but a fifth was still waiting. This was a Friday at 18:15 :(

But then, as we have discussed before, the Passenger Tax (or whatever they call it) does not seem to reach the parts that it is supposed to.