RYANAIR WELCOMES COURT OF APPEAL REJECTION OF BAA’S 7TH APPEAL AGAINST SALE OF STANSTED

CALLS FOR EARLY SALE TO PREVENT FURTHER BAA MISMANAGEMENT AS STANSTED TRAFFIC FALLS BY 600,000 PAX IN H1

2012-07-26 — /travelprnews.com/ — Ryanair, Europe’s only ultra-low cost airline, today (26 July) welcomed the Court of Appeal rejection of the BAA monopoly’s 7^th appeal against the sale of London Stansted Airport, as recommended by the Competition Commission (in 2008). Ryanair called for the early sale of Stansted, where the BAA has presided over declines of 600,000 passengers in the first half of 2012, while Heathrow and Gatwick grow. This proves the BAA monopoly is damaging Stansted and harming consumers.

Ryanair dismissed the absurd comments of BAA CEO, Colin Matthews, who this week claimed that Stansted was “a barometer of UK consumer spending” and added “when the UK consumer is confident again, we’ll see growth quicker there than anywhere else”. Ryanair called on Mr Matthews to explain why Heathrow and Gatwick are growing, while BAA Stansted is raising prices and declining.

BAA STANSTED TRAFFIC COLLAPSE COUNTINUES

	2011	2012	Decline
Jan	1.1m	1.0m	-7%
Feb	1.2m	1.1m	-5%
Mar	1.4m	1.3m	-5%
Apr	1.6m	1.5m	-5%
May	1.6m	1.5m	-5%
Jun	1.7m	1.6m	-3%
6 month total	8.6m	8m	-7%

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said:

“Ryanair welcomes today’s rejection by the Court of Appeal of the BAA’s 7^th appeal against the sale of Stansted, as first recommended by the UK Competition Commission back in 2008, over four years ago.

“It is now time for Colin Matthews and Ferrovial, the Spanish owners of the BAA, to stop delaying the sale of Stansted and instead get on with it. Since 2008 the BAA have doubled prices and Stansted and seen traffic decline from 24m in 2007 to 18m in 2011.

These repeated BAA court appeals are nothing more than a blatant attempt to delay the sale while BAA and its Spanish owners, Ferrovial, fatten up its monopoly profits at the expense of airlines, passengers and British jobs. This scamming by the BAA and Ferrovial must now end before even more traffic is lost at Stansted.”

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