The report on Tuesday upholds a decision reached by the competition authority in March when it rejected an appeal by BAA, the owner of London’s Heathrow - Europe’s busiest airport, to prevent it from being forced to sell Stansted, in south east England.
“The CC has concluded that the sale of the airports is fully justified and that passengers and airlines would still benefit from greater competition with the airports under separate ownership, despite the current government’s decision to rule out new runways at any of the London airports,” the CC said in a statement.
“The sales process will start in three months’ time, or sooner if undertakings are accepted from BAA in the meantime.”
The decision ends a two year battle between Ferrovial -owned BAA and the CC, who in 2009 ruled that BAA exerted a dominant hold on UK airports and told it to sell Gatwick and Stansted airports and one of its Scottish airports.
BAA, which owns Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports in Scotland, as well as Heathrow, Southampton and Stansted in England, said it was looking at its legal options with regards to the ruling.
“This decision would damage our company which is investing strongly in UK jobs and growth,” BAA said in a statement. “We have a responsibility to protect our shareholders’ investment and we will now consider a judicial review of the Competition Commission’s decision.”
BAA sold Gatwick to Global Infrastructure Partners for 1.5 billion pounds ($2.4 billion)in October 2009.
