The Competition Commission have announced that airport operator BAA should be forced to sell Stansted Airport and either Glasgow or Edinburgh Airport. The CC argue that passengers would benefit from better competition if airports were in a variety of hands.
The news has been welcomed by budget carrier Ryanair who claim that over the last 5 years BAA has doubled its charges to airlines at Stansted in order to make excessive profit. Ryanair also claim that this is the reason for a reduction in airport traffic from 24m in 2007 to just over 18m in 2011.
Ryanair's resident wallflower Michael O'Leary commented: “Ryanair believes that the BAA is an abusive airport monopoly, which engages in significant overcharging and monopoly profiteering at Stansted, to fund Ferrovial's [its owner] acquisition and operation of Heathrow Airport.”