HEAVILY-criticised airport company BAA, which owns Southampton Airport, will almost certainly have to sell three of its seven UK airports following a damning report by the Competition Commission (CC).
Spanish-owned BAA is set to have to give up Gatwick and Stansted airports in southern England and one of either Glasgow or Edinburgh airports.
The CC report said that it believed that "separate owners would be more active than BAA in exploiting existing opportunities" at south east England airports.
The CC report - with a final report on BAA's airport ownership due at the end of the year - made it clear that it was "unlikely to require the divestiture of Heathrow unless the sale of Gatwick or Stansted is likely to be impractical or ineffective".
The CC accused BAA of a lack of responsiveness to the needs of its airline customers, a lack of initiative in planning capacity and low levels and quality of service for passengers.
BAA chief executive Colin Matthews said: "By calling not just for a fundamental restructure of BAA but also for a review of the Government's air transport White Paper, the commission risks delaying the delivery of new runways and making better customer service less, not more, likely."
The CC said as well as now consulting to see which airports need to be sold, it was also seeking views on the need for "some formof enhanced regulation at Heathrow.
Christopher Clarke, chairman of the CC's BAA airports inquiry group, said: "We have provisionally found that there are significant competition problems arising from BAA's common ownership of seven UK airports.
"This is evident from a large number of factors including its lack of responsiveness to the needs of its airline customers and a lack of initiative in planning capacity.
"This has resulted in investment that is not tailored to the requirements of airport users and lower levels and quality of service for both airlines and passengers."
"While we accept that constraints on runway capacity in the south east will limit the scope for the benefits of competition in the short-term, we believe that separate owners would be more active than BAA in exploiting existing opportunities."
The likely sale of airports is expected to lead to a bidding war from interested companies.
The Manchester Airport Group, which runs Manchester, Bournemouth, East Midlands and Humberside airports, indicated that it could be interested in buying "one or more of the BAA airports".
