Over the years I've flown from many of the UK's airports but the one which impresses me most is Edinburgh. It's clean, spacious and the atmosphere is more like a village rather than a sprawling city. Travellers don't require to haul their personal effects along endless walkways and it's design ensures daylight floods the building wherever possible.
And it's for sale. BAA, the airport operator which is owned by Ferrovial, the Spanish construction group, was forced by the Competition Commission to sell either Edinburgh or Glasgow and chose Edinburgh.
Rumour has it that Sir Brian Souter is drawing up plans to join a consortium of Scottish investors to purchase it. A spokesman for Sir Brian said that he would not make any formal decisions until the sales document is available in January but that if he did go ahead, it would be through Souter Investments, which does not include his stake in Stagecoach. Sir Angus Grossart and Inverleith Capital chairman Ben Thompson, are two potential partners.
Other interested parties are thought to include private equity firm 3i, Aeroports de Paris, which owns Charles de Gaulle airport and the Global Infrastructure Partners, owners of Gatwick and City partners.
However Sir Brian and his colleagues may not get a look-in as the watchdog said those already running an airport will be favoured over non-operators.
With such a restriction upon non-operators, Sir Brian's only chance would be to find an airport operator to join the consortium. Will we see Edinburgh airport owned by Scots? It's doubtful, especially since the watchdog has made the proviso public.
source
Posts
6 comments:
Just hope they don't put tramlines down the middle of the runways ;-)
If there is to be a preference for a company already running an airport,who is sitting in the wings waiting to be presented with an airport? What happened to open tendering? A fair contest?,I thought this was about fair competition?
Any organisation taking over an airport will make sure it has the expertise to run it,to protect its investment.
Wish we had a chance at general elections to make sure of the ability of the parties to the contest to run the country, instead of finding out after the election they are clueless and their promises bogus.
I doubt if Souter would be interested in tram lines Brian.
Well said Apogee. Seems like the watchdog has it half worked out.
Strange that a watch dog should favour monopoly and by definition globalisation.
After all business is business and that hardly stands if competition is removed from the equation.
It is indeed Crinkly. I would have thought that was somehow against fair competition.
Post a Comment