Reports have circulated that Manchester Airports Group (MAG) looks set to buy Stansted airport, along with possibly one of the airports in Edinburgh or Glasgow.
Buying the airport would mean it could gain more business from long-haul carriers and reduce its current dependence on low-cost carriers.
Stansted is currently owned by BAA, which is under instructions from the competition commission to sell the airport, as well as either Edinburgh or Glasgow. MAG currently owns East Midlands, Bournemouth, Manchester and Humberside airports.
Talking to a conference for the Guild of Travel Management Companies in Abu Dhabi, MAG external affairs director Jonathan Bailey said: “We plan to acquire more airports, in the first instance in the UK.”
Talking to Travel Weekly, Bailey also said: “We will look at the BAA airports. Whether we make a bid is a different question.”
Currently Stansted’s traffic is dominated by one airline and this is a situation MAG would look to change.
“We would fight hard to win traffic from Heathrow and Gatwick,” said Bailey. “But it is big risk being so dependent on one operator that would put off many potential bidders. We would want to bring in other, long-haul carriers and change the mix of traffic.”
The Competition Commission has not yet put in place a timetable for BAA to sell these airports, but it estimated the process will take a couple of years.
