BAA has announced losses over the last nine months for its London operations owing to a drop in passenger numbers and an increasing pensions deficit. The company announced that Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted lost £636.3 m compared to £372.3 million earlier on in the year. Following pressure from the UK antitrust regulators, BAA is set to sell Gatwick for £1.51 billion which it said it would use to pay down debt.
In a statement BAA spokesman, Collin Matthews, said our “Our focus for the rest of the year is on improving efficiency and service standards for our customers, and further reducing costs,”
During the same nine month period traffic to the London airports has fallen 5.5%. Stansted has seen the biggest drop which was 12% compared to Heathrow’s 2.3% decrease.
BAA is still appealing against the antitrust regulator’s ruling that is forcing it to sell Stansted and two of it’s Scottish airports by 2011.