The sun sets on BAA's dominance of the UK aviation sector, probably derailing Stansted expansion plans for good measure.
Times are tough at the enormous aircraft hangar that I like to imagine BAA plot their world domination from. Being the biggest airport operator in the world, not to mention being best mates with the UK government's inner circle, you'd think they'd pretty much be able to do what they wanted. But it turns out the Competition Commission is going to make them sell three of their seven airports - Stansted, Gatwick and either Edinburgh or Glasgow.
Surely they can't do that, can they? Well, it turns out they can. The Commission is citing a 'complete abscence of competition' caused by BAA's overwhelming dominance of the UK aviation sector. That means something has to change, because the Competition Commission really, really likes competition.
Although the news has been expected for a while, it's still a bit of a bombshell, and only the latest crack in the rapidly crumbling façade of 'business as usual' for the airport operator. First it became clear that just about everyone - from the Tories, to the Lib Dems, to the WI, to Greenpeace - opposed plans for expanding Heathrow, then came the news that passenger numbers were falling at all of BAA's airports - deepening debts - and now it turns out they're being forced to sell off some of the family jewels.
But, what's bad news for one mega-corporation is good news for the plucky coalition of organisations who oppose aviation expansion because of the negligible economic benefits and the impact it would have on the local and global environment.
In particular, this is great news for opponents of a second runway at Stansted. The second runway plans have already suffered repeated delays, most recently due to falling passenger numbers forcing BAA to put them on hold. Given that the company now have to sell Stansted within two years, it looks very unlikely that BAA will bother to go to all the hassle of trying to get a second runway built at the airport. After all, selling the airports at anything other than a bargain basement price is likely to be challenging enough, given the current turbulent economic times.
While BAA are predictably already trying to argue that this ruling means they need a third runway at Heathrow even more urgently, (although it's not clear why this is an argument in favour of expanding Heathrow - after all, the Competition Commission is basically saying that BAA have too much control of the UK airport capacity, not that they should be encouraged to seek out more...) it's clear that this decision only adds to the growing political and economic uncertainty around aviation expansion.
