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Gatwick airport news - September, 2008 |
The offers for Gatwick Airport have been flooding in since BAA decided to put it up for sale last week.
Many of these companies have been from infrastructure and asset management firms, and now adding to the long list are RREEF - a division of Deutsche Bank, and Changi Airports (CAI) in Singapore. |
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Liverpool Airport’s owner has expressed their interest in a joint bid to buy Gatwick Airport.
They are not the first airport to have considered putting in a bid - Manchester Airport is also said to be on the list of possible bidders.
Peel Airports Group who own Liverpool airport, is said to be forming a group bid for Gatwick Airport following BBA’s decision to put it up for sale following the Competition Commission’s plans to do so later next year.
A spokesperson for Peel Airports said, “As an established UK airport operator, we can confirm Peel Airports has been approached by interested parties with a view to us participating as an operator and as a potential co-investor. We will review all options before making any decision on whether we proceed or not.” |
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The decision by BAA to sell Gatwick Airport has received the backing by the Associated of British Travel Agents (ABTA).
The ABTA group has more than 1,500 members, consisting of travel agents, tour operators and other companies, all of whom support BAA in the sale of Gatwick.
Mark Tanzer, Chief Exec of ABTA said, “We welcome this announcement by BAA. Any new owner for Gatwick must be subject to proper ongoing regulation to ensure that they provide the level of investment and performance that a modern international airport requires. Lack of capacity at Gatwick is bad for customers, bad for the industry and bad for the environment.” |
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It has been confirmed - the UK’s second biggest airport, Gatwick Airport, is now officially for sale. BAA made the announcement just 4 weeks after the Competition Commission advised that they would probably need to sell one of the UK airports due to concerns they had prime prominence in the market. Despite a report not being released until next year, BAA have decided to start the selling process ‘immediately’.
Gatwick Airport has been valued by regulators to be approximately £1.8billion, however the assumption with all that’s been going on in the media has put its value at £2bn - £3bn. There has been plenty of interest in the airport, from companies such as Fraport (Germany), MacQuarie (Australia), plus the Virgin Group who would put in a joint bid with other interested companies.
BAA’s Chief Executive, Colin Matthews, said, “Gatwick has long been an important and valuable part of BAA and the decision to sell was not taken lightly. We believe that the airport's customers, staff and business will benefit from the earliest possible resolution of current uncertainty. When the Competition Commission published its provisional findings, we said that we would be realistic in our response, though we disagree with the Commission's report and the analysis on which it is founded.”
He also told the BBC that it would be the market which would establish a price for the airport, and that it was “the right thing for BAA, for Gatwick, to do”, but that they would keep the other London airports: “At Stansted, we believe that a change of ownership would interfere with the process of securing planning approval for a second runway, which remains a key feature of Government air transport policy.” |
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Another 150 passengers were left stranded this week after British holiday company, K&S Travel went into administration, just like XL airways last week.
Specialising in trips to Turkey, K&S Travel closed down on Saturday according to the CAA. However their customers’ return trips are covered by a bond.
James Hotson, K&S Travel’s press officer said, “It's a very small operation, there are 150 passenger currently overseas. They can continue their holidays as normal. About 400 people with reservations would have their vacations cancelled and receive full refunds.” |
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The UK’s 3rd biggest holiday group has gone into administration, hitting approximately 285,000 travellers - 85,000 of those left stranded on holiday.
XL Leisure Group sold package holidays under different brand names, such as Aspire Holiday and The Really Great Holiday Company, as well as operating XL Airways. Based in Crawley near Gatwick Airport, the Company flew to 50 destinations, mainly to the Mediterranean, with their 21 aircraft mainly from bases out of Gatwick, Manchester and Glasgow. 1,700 employees have lost their jobs from what has been the biggest holiday operator failure for more than 20 twenty years.
Last year, the XL group carried 2.3 million passengers to their holiday destinations, but now all aircraft have been grounded and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) have said that 85,000 people could be stranded abroad. A spokesman for the CAA, David Clover said, “We're making arrangements and working very closely with the travel industry to organise repatriation flights. Clearly though, with XL Airways no longer operating, we're having to bring in substitute aircraft to bring people home.”
He also went on to say that package holidays will be covered by the CAA’s Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (ATOL) scheme, so any customers who have made an advanced booking will either be offered a different flight or a full refund. Unfortunately, any person who booked their flight direct with the airline will face a fee. The ATOL scheme does not cover those passengers who book separate flights and accommodation, and they will have to check their own insurance, or contact their banks/credit card company regarding any money back.
On the XL group’s website, a statement said, “The companies entered into administration having suffered as a result of volatile fuel prices, the economic downturn, and were unable to obtain further funding.” The company had £143million worth of debt which was deemed impossible to pay back.
Many companies are coming forward to help those who are stranded on holiday - Thomson and First Choice for those who are on package holidays protected by the ATOL scheme, and easyJet and Ryanair, as well as other airlines, are helping to fly passengers home.
The XL Leisure Group consisted of the following companies:-
XL Leisure Group, XL Airways UK, Excel Aviation, Explorer House, Aspire Holiday, Freedom Flights, Freedom Flights (Aviation), The Really Great Holiday Company, Medlife Hotels, Travel City Flights and Kosmar Villa Holidays.
If you have a holiday booked with any of these companies, contact the emergency helpline on +44 (0) 289 185 6547. You can also contact the administrators helpline on +44 (0) 208 242 4783. If you are in the UK, call 0800 068 8991. |
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Following the move by Continental Airlines to end flights out of Gatwick from next month, it has been revealed that more jobs will be lost as a result.
With the airline moving all flights out of Heathrow from October, a spokesman for Continental said, “There will job losses as a result of this move. We will lose 44 positions at Gatwick. They are a mix of full time and part time positions.”
“With immediate affect we are entering into consultations with our Gatwick employees to offer them alternatives to redundancy - this includes a voluntary redundancy package and helping them to identify other jobs.”
With so many airlines in financial trouble due to jet fuel costs, the job losses at Gatwick just seem to be never ending - they are still reeling from the collapse of Zoom and XL, the closure of Aviance, and Servisairs cutbacks. |
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Punctuality figures released by the Civil Aviation Authority for the 2nd quarter of this year (April - June) revealed that overall, on time rates for UK flights had improved on the previous year. ‘On-time’ means no more than 15 mins late, and between April and June, there was a 1% improvement on 2007 - that’s 69% of flights operating on time.
Of all of the airports who improved on punctuality, including Gatwick, Luton and Stansted, it was Cardiff who had the best performance rate of 87%. Newcastle attained a 79% rating, and Edinburgh managed a 75% on time rate. The lowest average delay was on flights to Leeds-Bradford, which was 7 minutes. |
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Gatwick Airport’s Continental Airlines service to Newark and Houston will end next month, as the airline wants to concentrate on its Heathrow flight services. Come 26th October, a third daily flight between Heathrow and Newark will commence, as well as continuing its Heathrow to Houston twice daily flight.
“Our customers have shown a clear preference for Heathrow, and our main competitors have focused their operations there,” commented Jim Compton, Continental’s executive vice-president of marketing.
However, Continental will carry on the service they run with Virgin Atlantic on codeshare operated flights, and also plan to continue the summer flights from Gatwick to Cleveland, Ohio. |
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Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson has announced that the Virgin Group will plan to make a bid for Gatwick Airport, a deal which could cos £2 - £3bn.
He told The Daily Telegraph, “We are open to being courted by anyone who is interested in bidding.” Manchester Airport Group has already come forward and approached Virgin about joining the Gatwick bid, and Sir Richard has also held talks with other potential partners.
Despite Gatwick Airport not yet being officially for sale, his interest in Britain’s 2nd biggest airport is one of many on the list of prospective bidders. A final report on Britain’s airports industry is being put together by the Competition Commission, but is not due to be published until next February/March.
Virgin Atlantic has experience as a partner in the public private partnership, National Air Traffic Services (NATS), and it is this that makes Sir Richard believe it would be more successful to have a group ownership of Gatwick Airport. Continuing to speak to the Telegraph, he said, “'It now looks as though they are going to break up BAA, and so they should. For the last few years they have been an absolute embarrassment. We have switched terminals at JFK [New York] four times - the terminals are free to compete with each other to offer airlines better service and it helps keep down the price of tickets across the Atlantic. It demonstrates that competition works.”
“The consortium approach to NATS has worked well for all parties and with our reputation for customer service, we would be very interested in Gatwick and using our expertise to run the airport as it should be run.” |
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