RYA - Ryanair Holdings 
LONDON (SHARECAST) - Low-cost airline Ryanair has welcomed decision by the Competition Commission (CC) that airport operator BAA should be forced to sell its airports at Stansted and either Glasgow or Edinburgh.
The CC announced on Tuesday that passengers would benefit from greater competition if the airports were in different hands.
Ryanair hopes that this latest confirmation of the CC's original (August 2008) decision will finally end the BAA monopoly's policy of using its legal stratagems to delay this sale, while it continues to overcharge airlines at Stansted to generate excess monopoly profits, while losing more routes and traffic, the airline said.
Over the last half-decade, BAA has doubled its charges to airlines at Stansted, whilst generating excess profits, Ryanair claimed. As a result, traffic at the airport in Essex collapsed from over 24m in 2007 to just over 18m in 2011.
BAA responded to the report, saying, The Competition Commission has not recognised that the world and BAA have changed [...] This decision would damage our company which is investing strongly in UK jobs and growth.
However, Ryanairs chief executive officer, Michael OLeary, said 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.
Ryanair's shares rose 1.9% to trade at 3.26 on Tuesday afternoon.
BC
Article Source KBG Test Blog (http://rc.kbg.me)
