Competition Commission review BAA April 22nd, 2008

The Competition Commission are to review BAA after their ‘emerging thinking’ report concluded that the airport operator ‘may not be serving well the interests of either airlines or passengers’, which looking at the Terminal 5 debacle may not come as a surprise to many.

The real concern is that BAA has some what of a monopoly in the South East of England as it owns Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, thus there is little in the way of competition. BAA is also has a similar hold over Scottish airports as it owns the big two of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The chairman of the enquiry into BAA was quoted as saying “We are particularly concerned by its (BAA’s) apparent lack of responsiveness to the differing needs of its airline customers, and hence passengers.” Despite this pretty conclusive statement, the Competition Commission added that they were yet to reach any conclusions!