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Britain's Spanish-owned airport operator BAA said Wednesday it planned to sell London's Gatwick hub after regulators last month called for the sale of two of its airports on competition grounds. "We have decided to begin the process of selling Gatwick Airport immediately," chief executive Colin Matthews said in a statement on BAA's website.
BAA is owned by Spanish giant Ferrovial, which bought the firm in 2006. Gatwick is the second largest airport in Britain, used by 35 million passengers last year. Matthews added that the decision to sell the airport, south of London, was "not taken lightly" but that customers and staff would benefit "from the earliest possible resolution of current uncertainty".
Although BAA disagrees with the Competition Commission regulator's findings in the report which triggered the sale, Matthews said that the firm's response to it would "focus our efforts accordingly".
"BAA will continue to change in many respects. We have a new management team. Our priority is to improve the quality of service we offer passengers and airlines," he said. The airline Virgin Atlantic, which is owned by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, immediately expressed an interest in snapping up Gatwick.
Chief executive Steve Ridgway said: "We are delighted that BAA has ended the uncertainty over Gatwick's future. "Virgin Atlantic would relish the opportunity to bid for Gatwick as part of a consortium and inject our customer service expertise into any future running of the airport.
"But Gatwick doesn't just need a new owner - it needs a much tougher regulatory system which ensures any new owner doesn't simply become BAA Mark 2." BAA also owns London's Heathrow and Stansted airports which, along with Gatwick, constitute the city's three main air travel hubs. The Competition Commission said in its preliminary report that BAA should ditch two of its three London airports but BAA made no mention of a second sale in its statement.
Matthews said that a change of ownership at Stansted "would interfere with the process of securing planning approval for a second runway". Observers say it is unlikely to sell Heathrow, the jewel in its crown. Analysts have estimated the sale of Gatwick could fetch up to three billion pounds (3.8 billion euros, 5.4 billion dollars).

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008

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