Sale of Gatwick Airport Up in the Air

If you have a spare £1.8 billion to spend, Spanish-owned BAA (British Airports Authority) is putting Gatwick Airport up for sale.

The Competition Commission has recently drawn attention to the problems caused by BAA’s monopoly of London’s three major airports (Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted).  Opened in 1958, Gatwick is reported to be the second busiest airport in the UK, after Heathrow, with approximately 35 million passengers passing through its gates annually. The Commission may also recommend that BAA sell off more airports - possibly including Stansted and one of its Scottish airports (potentially Glasgow or Edinburgh).

Parties interested in purchasing Gatwick include Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, Manchester Airport Group and German and Australian companies.  It is believed that the sale of the airport will eventually result in benefits and improved service to passengers, businesses and staff - but the positive opinion is not shared by all.  In the meantime, business will carry on as usual so there’s no need for passengers to be alarmed if they have flights booked out of Gatwick.

With so much change and uncertainty in the travel industry it’s nice to know that you can still depend on low cost and comprehensive Travel Insurance to cover your travel needs.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Airlines, Travel News .

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